


The Living, The Dead, And The Ones In-Between

by Jen27ny



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Depression, Gen, Just Like Heaven au, Mental Health Issues, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts Implied, Tony Stark is trying his best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 02:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen27ny/pseuds/Jen27ny
Summary: When Peter wakes up and finds himself looking at his own body, he’s pretty sure he knows what comes next: walking into a bright light or descending into a fiery pit. That doesn’t happen. Instead, he stays right there, invisible to everyone around him and unable to touch anything or anyone, condemned to watch his own body lay motionless in the bed and hear his aunt and uncle begging him to wake up.But then the genius inventor and Peter’s lifelong idol Tony Stark appears at the hospital, and it turns out that Peter isn’t as invisible as he thought. Together, they try to get Peter back into his body.A Just Like Heaven AU
Relationships: Ben Parker/May Parker (Spider-Man), Mary Parker/Richard Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 109
Kudos: 183
Collections: Irondad Big Bang 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art Work](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/777105) by rosysea. 



> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is my entry for the 2021 [Irondad Big Bang](https://irondadbigbang.tumblr.com/) and I'm so excited for it! I've been paired with [lantaniel](https://lantaniel.tumblr.com/) who made such [adorable art pieces](https://lantaniel.tumblr.com/post/645749646249148416/illustration-for-the-living-the-dead-and-the) as well as an [amazing banner](https://jen27ny.tumblr.com/post/645726030896726016/irondadbigbang-title-the-living-the-dead-and). You should all definitely check her stuff out and leave her some love!
> 
> The entire story has been beta-read by [ghostly-blues](https://ghostly-blues.tumblr.com/), thank you so much for that!
> 
> Enjoy! :)

Peter is dead.

That’s Peter’s first thought, at least, when he sees himself lying in the hospital bed, eyes closed, unconscious, hooked up to several beeping machines. May and Ben are sitting by his side; May is crying and Ben has his arms wrapped around her, his own eyes red. If Peter is dead, the next step would be to move on to the afterlife, right? Despite not being a religious person, he kind of expects a shining bright light with an angel’s choir to show up – or a burning hole with evil laughter.

But neither happens. Peter stays there in the room, looking at his aunt and uncle and his own body.

“May? Ben?” he asks, taking a few hesitant steps towards them. “What is- What’s happening?”

They don’t answer him. In fact, they look like they haven’t even heard him.

An invisible fist clenches around Peter’s stomach, squeezing his organs tight and making him nauseous. “Can you hear me?” Peter asks, his voice frail as his eyes begin to water. “Please? May, Ben, _please_ say something.”

They stay silent, but May reaches out to take Peter’s hand – the Peter lying in the hospital bed. She grasps his hand that lays on top of his blanket and squeezes it.

Peter – the Peter standing in the room and witnessing everything – can’t feel it.

Something is wrong.

As the panic starts to rise up in his chest, Peter stumbles towards his guardians. “Guys, I-” He reaches out to touch Ben’s shoulder, but his hand falls through his uncle’s body as if it’s not there at all. It looks like a bad effect in a mediocre horror movie, Peter’s arm sharply cut off where it meets Ben’s body.

In shock, Peter stumbles backwards, staring at his hand – and suddenly, he stumbles through the wall. Not through an open door, but through the _actual_ wall, like he doesn’t have a real body. He finds himself standing in a busy hallway of the hospital. Nobody even looks at him, obviously finding nothing unusual about a boy suddenly jumping through a wall.

With the panic already building up inside him, climbing up his chest and slowly gripping his throat with long, cold, boney fingers, ready to choke him any second, Peter takes a deep breath and turns towards the first doctor he sees. “Excuse me?”

The young woman in the white coat doesn’t react at all, simply reading whatever is written on the paper in front of her, scribbling down a few notes that Peter doesn’t bother to read.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, can you help-”

She turns around, looking straight at Peter – no. That’s not right. She’s looking straight _through_ him. And while he’s still busy processing that very telling piece of information, she starts to walk towards him and walks and walks and … walks right through him. While she looks completely unbothered by it, Peter feels weird, like someone knocked every last breath of air out of him.

No.

No, this isn’t happening. Something like this only happens in bad rom-coms, not in real life.

Not giving up just yet, he storms towards a nurse sitting behind a computer. “You have to help me!” he says, too panicky to really bother with niceties. “Please, you-” He doesn’t even get a chance to finish that sentence, because the nurse turns around, grabs the phone, and starts to call someone, already chatting away excitingly.

A cold and deeply painful feeling settles in his stomach.

Peter wants to scream. He wants to cry. But not a single sound leaves his mouth as the realization sinks in.

He doesn’t have a body (well, no, he _does_ have a body, but it’s uselessly lying in a hospital bed while he has an existential crisis – wait, can he even call it an existential crisis if his existence is questionable right now? – in the middle of a busy hallway) and nobody can see or hear him.

Peter is all alone.

* * *

His existential crisis (he decides that he can still call it that. Besides, it’s not like anybody can hear him use an unfitting word) lasts three days. Three days that are filled with a lot of tears and heartbroken pleas to his family to hear him and begging the doctors walking around to fix whatever is going on.

Nobody hears him. Nobody reacts.

So after three days, Peter decides to pick himself up. Ben always told him that an optimistic mind can do more than a pessimistic one, and the boy decides to follow the advice. First, he tries getting back in his body by literally lying on top of it.

It doesn’t work.

Then, he tries to concentrate and move objects around to bring some attention to himself.

That also doesn’t work.

When he hears that a psychic is visiting a patient a few rooms down, Peter hurries over there, hoping that maybe the woman can hear him. After about ten minutes, Peter is pretty sure the psychic is a fraud. He’s been screaming into her ear the entire time and she’s only spoken about some dude named Frank, not even blinking into his direction.

The thought is so depressing, it almost sends him into another existential crisis, and it’s solely his stubbornness that keeps him moving around and working on fixing his problem.

The next step should be easy: if he can’t tell anyone what’s going on, he has to figure out a solution himself.

Which starts with finding out why he’s in the hospital in the first place, because Peter has absolutely no idea what happened to him. The last thing he remembers is storming out of their apartment, angry because of the argument they’d had. Peter can’t even remember what they’d been arguing about – probably something stupid. He’d been hurrying down the streets of Queens, a hood pulled deep into his face to protect him from the rain.

And then…

Then he woke up in the hospital, standing next to a bed his own body was lying in, his aunt and uncle next to him, crying and begging him to wake up.

He’s clearly missing a few things.

Seeing as Peter can’t touch anything, he has to wait until one of the nurses or doctors comes in and opens his file before he can see it. It doesn’t take too long, and Peter almost can’t believe his own eyes.

He’s been shot in the chest.

If he had a body, Peter is pretty sure he would faint. But as he’s fairly body-less, all he can do is stand there and stare. Stare at the words on the page, and when the doctor closes his file and leaves, Peter stays standing there, staring at the exact same spot.

Someone shot him.

Why? What happened? What could he have done that would make someone angry enough to shoot him? Eventually, his eyes wander towards his body, looking at his own chest, almost like he’s waiting to get x-ray vision and see through the ugly hospital gown and the bandage.

Peter would never admit it to anyone, but it scares him a lot more than he wants to admit. And a teeny, tiny part is glad to be stuck in this form – at least, nobody can shoot him again.

However, now that he’s figured out step one, he has to move on.

The only problem is that Peter has absolutely no idea what comes next.

There’s no guidebook or protocol that magically appears in his hand. They never covered what to do in case of accidentally astral projecting in school. Even when May taught him some first aid stuff for emergencies, she never gave him any hints that he would end up in this situation.

Which leaves Peter with only one choice: he has to wait.

And he _hates_ waiting.

He’s never been good at waiting.

Like, he’s absolutely the _worst_ at waiting.

In Peter’s eyes, waiting is just such a waste of time, which he lets everyone in a ten feet radius of him know. Waiting for his food to heat up in the microwave? It feels like forever. Waiting for the rest of his classmates to finish the test? Torture. Peter just can’t sit still, always bouncing one of his legs or spinning a pen between his fingers or playing one of the countless games he downloaded on his phone.

And now?

Now he has to wait without being able to do anything at all.

Well, no, that’s not exactly right. There’s one thing to do: he can wander around the hospital.

So, that’s what he does.

Peter starts with the floor he’s on. Seeing as he’s not an adult, he’s in the pediatric wing of the hospital, and that’s at least a little bit more fun. He’s a silent watcher when a clown is visiting, surprising all the small kids with his jokes and balloon animals (he’s a bit jealous that he can’t get a balloon dog). When one of the kids around his age watches one of his favorite shows, he joins them, giving non-stop commentary nobody can hear. Peter watches some intense games of Uno and Monopoly, tries his best to grab a pencil so he can help a little girl with her drawing, and wishes he could somehow make his existence known so badly.

Eventually, Peter moves on.

He visits all of the floors – even though they’re decidingly less fun with pretty much no clowns at all –, never passing up on the chance to communicate with someone, but always failing. After a while, Peter stops wandering into other patient’s rooms. Turns out a hospital isn’t the most fun place to be. He sees people vomiting or not recognizing their loved ones, he hears how doctors tell patients they can’t help them anymore, he sees patients and families alike crying over the bill they have to pay, worrying how they could ever afford it. He sees someone die despite everyone around them doing their best to keep their heart beating.

After that encounter, Peter hides in his room for two days, watching his still body, finding some kind of comfort in May and Ben’s presence.

He starts hanging out with the doctors and nurses (if you can really call it hanging out, seeing as they don’t even know he’s there), listening to the stories they tell their colleagues, gossiping about other colleagues, and complaining about their boss. It is a very one-sided conversation (Peter, who’s been a talker since the first second he was able to make noises, still talks and takes part in the conversation, but of course no one is ever answering him), but it’s still better than seeing the misery in some of the rooms.

A part of Peter accepts that this is what it’s going to be like for… well, maybe not all of his life, but a very long time. As long as they can afford keeping him in that coma and alive (He really doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen if they can’t afford it anymore).

For almost three weeks (three weeks that are the loneliest of his life), this is all Peter does.

But then, everything changes.

Peter’s sitting with two nurses (Julie and Ann), listening to them complaining about their husbands and their apparent inability to do the laundry properly, when another nurse (Dominic) stops by, a grin spread across his face, interrupting their little rent. “You never guess what just happened.”

“If it’s about the patient from room 417 again, I don’t wanna hear it,” Ann says, scrunching up her face. Peter nods in agreement. While he himself has never been to room 417, he heard a lot of stories about the patient in there.

Dominic’s smile grows. “They just started an emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix.”

“How’s that in any way exciting?” Julie asks, sounding absolutely bored. For some reason, Julie really doesn’t like Dominic, but Peter hasn’t figured out why yet, and it’s not like someone can explain it to him.

“Because that patient is Tony Stark’s bodyguard.”

Peter immediately sits up, head shooting up like a dog that just heard a sudden noise. “Tony Stark?” he echoes with Julie and Ann.

“As in _the_ Tony Stark?” Ann asks. “Greatest mind of our generation?”

“Merchant of Death?” Julie throws in and now it’s Peter who can’t help but scrunch up his face.

“He stopped making weapons years ago,” he says, unable to keep his mouth shut. “Right after he got back from being held hostage in Afghanistan when he realized that his weapons were being misused and sold to the wrong people. Since then, he’s not only revolutionized everything we know about clean energy with the arc reactor and funds several big projects to make education more accessible, but he’s also an advocate for world peace. But, sure, go ahead and forget all of that.”

Sadly, no one hears Peter’s little speech, which is predictable but still quite disappointing.

Yeah, okay, Peter is a fan of Tony Stark.

A _big_ fan.

But as someone who likes to tinker around with old tech and build stuff and who reads college-level science books in his spare time, how can he not be a fan of Tony Stark? That man is a genius, making the impossible possible and turning everyone’s wildest ideas into reality.

Dominic’s smile is still growing. “You haven’t even heard the best part yet.”

“Which would be?”

“Tony Stark is here _right now_.”

Even Julie is unable to make a snarky comment, and Peter’s mouth falls open.

Tony Stark is here? In this hospital?

“What do you mean?” Ann asks again, her voice now an urgent whisper as a patient with their visiting family passes them. “Has he been hurt or something?”

Julie finds her snark again. “How would he get hurt when it’s his bodyguard in surgery?”

“Well, the bodyguard is also his driver, isn’t he? Maybe they were driving and got into an accident or something?”

“Stark isn’t hurt,” Dominic says, shaking his head and waving a hand dismissively. “He’s here waiting until the surgery is over.”

“Why would he wait for him? Do you think those articles from TMZ have been true about them?”

“Who cares about those articles?” Ann snaps. “Now we’re gonna have to deal with paparazzi potentially bothering other patients because they want to get to Stark. Not to mention everyone else in this hospital trying to get a picture of the man.”

“Oh, he’s not waiting with the others,” Dominic explains. “The director closed off an entire waiting room just for Stark.”

“What? Why? He wouldn’t do that for that poor family two months ago, he said we didn’t have the capacity.”

Dominic shrugs. “The dude has lots of money. Probably offered to write him a big check or something.”

“So, Stark is here, but no one can go and see him?” Julie asks, and Dominic nods.

Well… not no one.

Peter immediately jumps to his feet, racing towards the staircase, not bothering with opening the door, seeing as he can run right through it. He’s been dreaming about meeting Tony Stark since he first heard about the man! Maybe he can’t get a picture with him or talk to him, but he can at least get a look at him. And seeing how no one even notices Peter, it’s not like he’ll be bothering him.

Finding the waiting room isn’t difficult. It’s a small one, at the very end of one corridor, hidden behind a corner. All the blinds are down and the door looks like it might be locked – not that it’s stopping Peter, of course. Without any hesitation, he walks right through the door.

Tony Stark sits in the chai against a wall, positioned in a way that would make it quite difficult for anyone to see him if they happen to peek through the blinds. He has his arms crossed over his chest, head leaned against the wall behind him, and his eyes are closed, looking like he’s asleep.

With a confidence Peter only possesses because he knows he’s invisible to the rest of the world and that his actions have no consequences, he steps closer – like, almost uncomfortably close, stopping only about a foot in front of the man.

Somehow, he does and doesn’t look exactly as Peter expected. He’s unmistakably Tony Stark, easily recognizable because of the iconic beard and the general features of his face. And yet, from this close, Peter sees stuff that makes the celebrity Tony Stark look a lot more like… a normal human being. The crow’s feet around his eyes, barely visible on his relaxed face right now; the lines around his mouth that Peter imagines are from laughing; the barely-there wrinkles on his forehead; the individual gray hairs on his head and in his beard.

He looks human.

He looks tired.

Until Tony suddenly opens his eyes, staring at him with eyes that almost seem all-knowing, sharp and alive and inquisitive. Well, not staring _at_ him, Peter knows that it’s impossible, but it surprises him enough that he actually leans back.

Tony Stark is still staring in his general direction, pretty much exactly like he can see him. Peter is so weirded out by it that he almost turns around to check if someone is behind him.

“Can I help you?” the billionaire suddenly asks, his voice a bit rough and not that friendly, to be honest.

Peter blinks at him.

Tony continues to stare at him, slightly raising an eyebrow.

Peter blinks again. Did he… did he just- No. No, that can’t be... No one has as much as looked into his general direction for the last three weeks. This is just a coincidence. Or wishful thinking. Or maybe a hallucination. Do coma patients get hallucinations? However, Peter can’t help himself – he actually turns around to check if anyone else is in the room.

“Hey, you, kid who’s invading my personal bubble,” Tony says, sounding quite annoyed. “I’m talking to you.”

A shiver runs down Peter’s spine, like lightning stricking his entire body, waking up every cell in his body, making them pay attention because something big is happening.

“You-,” Peter whispers, almost too afraid to say anything at all, fearing that this will turn out to be a big hoax if he’s too loud. “You can’t see me.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure I can see you,” Tony answers, looking less and less amused with every second that passes.

The shiver turns into a full-on vibration as a small sliver of hope starts to take a hold of Peter. His heart starts beating faster and faster, and he’s half-convinced one of the monitors that’s hooked up to his actual body is going crazy right now. “You can see me,” he says, still in awe, “and you can hear me.”

“’Course I can. Now, what-”

“But nobody else can.”

Tony looks like he’s about to say something but stops, slightly tilting his head to the side. “Is that some kind of metaphor that you’re being neglected at home or something? Because I really don’t-”

“No! No, I really mean it. Nobody sees or hears me.”

“Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but they’re all just ignoring you.”

“No, it’s because I don’t have a body right now.” Tony raises both eyebrows, clearly not following Peter’s line of thought. “I mean, I do have a body, but not here with me, and-”

The teenager can literally see his life-long idol in front of him getting more and more annoyed with each rambling word that leaves his mouth.

An idea pops up in his head, and before he can think twice about it, Peter is already talking again. “Here, let me show you.” Without any hesitation, he reaches out for Tony’s shoulder, and just like with anything else Peter tries to touch, his hand falls through his body, still looking as ridiculous and unnatural as it did the first time.

Tony curses, jumping into the air, instinctively trying to get as much space between himself and Peter’s ghost hand as possible, staring at the place where Peter’s arm is seemingly stuck in his shoulder with wide eyes. “What is-” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he raises his own hand, trying to grab Peter’s arm. It’s fruitless. His hand falls through the arm as if nothing is there. Well, technically, there really is nothing there. “How is this happening?”

Peter pulls his arm back, watching Tony flinch as he sees how the arm leaves his body, and shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s like astral projecting or something.”

“Astral projecting?”

“Yeah, like when people are almost dying and are having an out-of-body-experience? Something like that.”

“And you’re-” Tony stops himself, his eyes flying over Peter’s form again. The annoyance from before is gone, replaced with a kind of curiosity Peter knows from watching Ned figuring out a new programming trick or trying to complete the next level in a new video game. (If May were here, she would tell him that he has that exact same look whenever he’s in the process of figuring out a problem.) “You’re… dying?”

Peter shrugs again, but this time, it’s more out of embarrassment. “I mean… yes and no?”

“That was a simple yes _or_ no question.”

“I mean, philosophically speaking, it’s not a simple question at all. Aren’t we all dying from the moment we’re born? And-”

“Kid,” Tony interrupts him, but if Peter isn’t completely out of his mind, he thinks he sees a spark of amusement in the billionaire’s eyes, “I only stray into those philosophical questions when I’m drunk, and since I haven’t touched a drink in several months now, I’m not ready for that.”

“I’m in a coma,” Peter explains. “So, I guess that’s close enough that I qualify for this exclusive experience. Yay me.”

To his surprise, Tony actually snorts at his lame joke, the lines around his eyes and mouth becoming more prominent. For a moment, he watches Peter, who grows more and more fidgety. He hasn’t spoken with anyone for three weeks, and he’s probably terribly out of practice. And on top of all of that, Tony Stark is the first person he’s talking to – it’s no wonder he’s acting like an idiot!

“What’s your name, kid?”

“What?” Peter asks, ripped out of his thoughts.

“Your name. What everyone else calls you. When they see and hear you, of course.”

“Uh, Peter. Peter Parker.”

Tony smiles. “I’m guessing you already know who I am.”

“Well, _duh_ , yeah, of course.”

His smile grows. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” Then, to Peter’s baffled surprise, he motions to the seat next to him, an invitation to join him. “Mind keeping me company?”

For a second, Peter’s brain can’t function. Is this really happening? Or is this some kind of weird coma-hallucination? Like a dream or something? Is that something that can happen when you’re in a coma? However, deciding to take the chance (even if this really turns out to be a dream), Peter basically jumps onto the chair. “I don’t mind. I mean, you’re the first person that I’ve been able to talk to in three weeks.” At the last second, he manages to swallow down the _I’ve felt so lonely_ , fearing it’ll make him sound like a child.

“Three weeks? Is that how long you’ve been like…” He waves his hand around the air, “this?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Tony nods and pauses, seemingly thinking about his next words. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you in a coma?”

“I got shot.”

“What?” Tony’s eyes grow almost as big as they had when Peter reached through him. “You got shot?”

“That’s what’s written in my file.” Peter taps on his chest, the place where his physical body has a big, fancy band-aid slapped on, a couple of inches below his heart. “Right here.”

Tony follows Peter’s finger, resting on the spot on his chest, taking a second to read the science pun on his shirt (right now, Peter is incredibly grateful that his spirit-form is wearing the same clothes he had on when he got shot, and not the ugly hospital gown his physical body has to wear). There’s a small frown on his face. “Why did you get shot?”

“I, uh, can’t really remember.” Tony raises an eyebrow again in a way that prompts Peter to elaborate. “I remember that I stormed out of our apartment because I had an argument with my aunt and uncle. I remember that it was raining. But everything after that…” Peter shrugs, not knowing how to end the sentence. He kind of feels like he’s back in school, like a teacher called on him for a question and he doesn’t know the answer.

The genius next to him huffs out a breath, still looking at the spot on Peter’s chest for a few seconds before moving up to his face again. “And after that you were suddenly standing next to your own body?”

“Yeah. I tried to talk to someone, but nobody listens. And I can fly through walls and stuff.” Throwing his thumb over his shoulder, Peter points to the door. “That’s how I got in here.”

“Which would explain why I didn’t hear you come in.”

“What happened to your bodyguard?” Peter asks, now unable to keep in all the questions that had filled his head the second he found out Tony Stark was in the building.

Tony blinks, looking like he’d forgotten why he’s here in the first place. “His appendix ruptured.” Then, he rolls his eyes, pulling his face into a bit of a grimace. “He’s been feeling sick for weeks, and I told him again and again to go see a doctor. But that stubborn man wouldn’t listen. Now look at what good it did him. He puked in the middle of SI’s lobby and couldn’t even properly stand up.” He shakes his head, mumbling. “And he tells me _I’m_ the reckless one.”

“Are you two close?” Peter continues.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re sitting here waiting for him.”

The corner of Tony’s mouth jumps up. “He’s been my bodyguard for years now. Probably since before you were born, kid. Plus, I can’t wait for him to wake up and say I told you so. That’s what he gets for not listening to me. By now, he should really know to always listen to my advice.”

Peter chuckles, feeling almost drunk on the fact that he’s talking to someone and that said someone is Tony Stark! After being ignored for so long, this feels like a soothing balm, making him feel less lonely, and almost like everything will be okay. “So, will you be coming here often, then?”

“No, probably not.”

With those three words, the happy, giddy feeling inside Peter completely vanishes. “What?”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “This is still a public hospital. People will notice if I come here. And when they do, paparazzi will follow, not only harassing me but everyone else in here, too. Besides, Happy isn’t-”

“Happy?”

“That’s his name. Well, not his legal name. At least not yet, but I’m working on it. Anyway, Happy likes his privacy. If I stop by to drop off his Downton Abbey DVD box, he’s more than happy to be by himself.”

_But I’m not_ , Peter wants to say. He wants to beg and plead for Tony to stay or to promise to come back. Not necessarily because Peter’s his fan, but because he’s the only one who can see and hear him. Peter can’t go back to being invisible.

Something must show on Peter’s face, because Tony’s expression changes, almost looking guilty – looking like pity. (A part of Peter wants to be angry, he’s never liked being pitied, but a different part wants Tony to feel guilty, if it means he will stay with him and Peter doesn’t have to go back to being alone.) “Kid, I’m not-”

In the end, Peter’s manners and his deep-seated desire to not be a bother to anyone win. “No, I get it. You’re Tony Stark, you don’t have time to hang out at a hospital. I mean, you have to invent greener engines and amazing phones and… and other stuff. Probably go to a lot of fancy galas or, like, charity events or something.” Peter suddenly realizes that he has no idea what the normal day of a genius billionaire looks like, and it makes him feel stupid.

Tony grimaces. “Okay, now I’m starting to feel like an asshole.”

“No, please don’t! I totally get it!” Despite _getting it_ , Peter still feels himself choking up, the reality of spending an indefinite time completely invisible burning through him, tearing open the wounds that had just started to heal when he noticed that at least _someone_ could see him. Already feeling the tears prickle behind his eyes, he jumps to his feet – he’s not going to cry in front of Tony Stark. No way. “Besides, you’re right, of course, the patients and their family would probably get bothered a lot.”

Tony catches on to Peter’s not-really-subtle attempt to leave, furrowing his brows in a way that makes him look unhappy. “Kid, you don’t have to leave-”

“No, it’s fine, really. I have, uh, homework to do, and-”

“I’m still here, we can still talk-”

As if someone was listening to their conversation, the door opens and Dr. Smithers steps in. “Mr. Stark, I just want to inform you that the Mr. Hogan’s surgery went without any complications and-”

Peter isn’t staying to listen. He sees his chance while Tony is focusing on a real human being who is physically there and he runs straight through the wall into the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter thinks he sees Tony looking after him – he thinks he’s probably imagining the hurt look on the man’s face.

* * *

Peter stares at the screen of the TV, watching the people dressed in old-timey clothes having tea and writing letters in their castle. “There’s nothing happening,” he complains, sitting on the chair by the bed, his head propped up by his hand, half-leaning over the mattress. “All they do is talk. And drink tea. And eat. Who dresses up for dinner, anyway? Do people really do that?”

There’s no answer.

“Those upstairs people are so weird. I mean, everyone works their butts off, pretty much every single day, and they barely get anything for it. Isn’t there, like, a union or something that could help them?”

Still no answer.

“Or maybe they could strike. That would be hilarious. Can you imagine Lord Grantham making his own dinner? It would be a disaster.” Peter turns around to look at his companion, a part of him expecting the man to laugh or agree.

Instead, the man in the bed doesn’t say anything, ignoring Peter like he isn’t even in the room.

Which is true.

Peter hadn’t meant to hang out with Tony Stark’s bodyguard. In fact, he kind of swore that he’d stay as far away from the room as he possibly could because he doesn’t want to risk running into the billionaire again. The realization that Tony wouldn’t be his metaphorical knight in shining armor who would help him through this _hurt_ – not only because the first person to actually see and talk to him in three weeks rejected him, but also because it had been his idol.

It’s not like Peter can’t understand his reasons. As a celebrity, Tony draws a crowd wherever he goes, and the man himself isn’t exactly what you would describe as subtle. Plus, in his eyes, Peter is just some kid he talked to for less than ten minutes. He’s just like any other fan he has ever met. Why should someone as Tony Stark go out of his way to help him? Especially when his problem is so weird.

Despite Tony’s claims from two days ago that he wouldn’t stop by the hospital again, he did visit Happy the day before, dropping off the entire DVD collection of Downton Abbey. Peter himself hadn’t seen him, but Dominic gladly gossiped about him stopping by once more. And okay, yes, a part of Peter wanted to go and see him again, simply to find out if their conversation had been real and not a product of his imagination, fueled by his loneliness and isolation.

Peter didn’t go to see if the rumors were true. Instead, hours later, he looked for Happy’s room, slipping into it as unnoticed as ever. The first thing Peter had noticed was that it’s a really nice room. The second was that the man probably hadn’t gotten get his nickname from his cheery personality. And the third thing had been the DVD box sitting on the table next to him.

Since then, Peter hasn’t left the room. Binge-watching a show is better than wandering the halls of a hospital, never knowing if you’ll walk into someone throwing up or dying – even if said show is something as boring as Downton Abbey. And Happy doesn’t mind him. At least he isn’t telling him to go away.

Which, yes, Peter knows is because Happy has no idea he’s here in the first place. But if he keeps thinking about it, he only gets more depressed.

“I think we would be friends,” Peter says, turning back to the TV to watch even more people dressed in fancy clothes drinking tea. “Like, if you could actually see me. Don’t you?” Peter interprets his silence as a yes. “And then I could show you what good TV is supposed to be. Starting with Star Wars and-”

There’s a sudden knock on the door.

“Yes?” Happy grumbles, obviously displeased that he has to pause his show.

The door opens and Tony Stark walks in, a baseball hat pulled deep over his face, the hood of his jacket pulled over it, and wearing very un-Tony-Stark-like shades that he takes off as he enters the room.

Peter kind of wants to turn invisible.

Then, he remembers that he’s already invisible and wishes he could be even _more_ invisible.

Which apparently isn’t a wish that’s coming true, because Tony’s eyes immediately fly to him, almost like a moth to a flame. Peter has to fight the urge to slip from his chair and hide underneath the bed, fleeing from the almost intense stare.

Happy is oblivious to his dilemma. “What are you doing here?”

“Wow,” Tony says, putting on a fake pout, “that almost sounds like you don’t wanna see me. I’m hurt, Hap. Here I am, making some time in my very busy and very important schedule to visit my dear, dear friend who is stuck in the hospital, and all I get are snarky remarks?”

“C’mon, why are you really here?”

For a second, Tony’s eyes fly back to Peter, who can’t even process what is happening right now. “I just told you.”

“Is there some board meeting that you don’t wanna go to today?”

“Maybe.” Happy snorts, seemingly satisfied with the answer. Tony doesn’t offer any more explanation (or excuses), just leaning against the other end of the bed. “How’re you doing? They treating you okay?”

“Considering that you bribed them into giving me one of the fanciest rooms they have-”

“I didn’t bribe them, I’m paying for it fair and square. It’s not my fault they decided to give you an upgrade. Besides-”

“I’m fine, Tony,” Happy interrupts him with a roll of his eyes, but it doesn’t look as annoyed as he’s trying to sound. “Thank you.”

“I just wanna make sure they’re treating you right. You’re a valuable member of the Stark Industries family. Who else would make sure that everyone is wearing their badges?”

Happy snorts, causing Tony to grin. Peter, who hasn’t moved a single muscle during the entire exchange, thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , he might be able to slip out of the room without being noticed, but his plan quickly turns into a small pile of ashes as Tony’s eyes dart to him once more – and Peter suddenly starts to suspect that the man isn’t just here to check in on his friend.

Tony sniffs once.

Then, he pulls out his phone, looking at it for a second. “Sorry, I have to take this call. Work-related.”

“Since when are you taking work calls?”

“Are you implying I don’t take my job seriously? I’m offended.” Happy snorts again at Tony’s mock-hurt expression, but the billionaire is already accepting the call, lifting the phone to his ear. “Hey, Peter.” Without meaning to, Peter sits up straight. “No, it’s fine. I can talk to you.” Tony nods towards the door, the universal sign that he’s going to step outside for a moment, and Happy just ushers him away, already resuming Downton Abbey. Before the door closes all the way, Tony shoots Peter a very telling look.

For a second, Peter just sits there, thinking about his options, heart beating in his throat. He could just sit here and continue to watch stuck-up people dress up to have dinner while their servants work their butts off. He could run away and find a new place to hide.

Or… Or he could go outside and see what Tony wants. Tony, who said he wouldn’t come back here, and yet he has two times, this time under the pretense of very questionable excuses.

The question is: why is Tony doing all of this?

There are a million answers to that question running through Peter’s head, from him wanting to rip Peter’s hope into tiny pieces again to telling him he found a sudden cure for his misery – all of them equally unlikely. May always tells him he has way too much imagination.

His eyes fly to the door. Peter isn’t sure what he’d do if Tony tells him he can’t help him again. But why would he come here to tell him something Peter already knows? Something they already discussed?

Besides, he’s really not enjoying Downton Abbey all that much.

Taking a deep breath and telling himself that he got this, Peter stands up and walks through the door, making Tony, who had been leaning against the opposite wall and mumbling nonsense into his phone, jump a little. As soon as he sees Peter, his attention moves from making sure he’s not suspicious to him.

Peter nervously shifts his weight. “You’re, uh… not really on the phone, are you?”

“Obviously not,” Tony says, taking a second to show him his dark phone screen. “But talking to yourself is seen as a sign of madness, and I really don’t need a rumor that I’m going insane.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

Tony clears his throat again. “So… how are you doing?”

Peter blinks once, twice, and then he finally realizes that Tony Stark actually asked him that question. “Uh, good. I think. Still in a coma. Still astral projecting. Still invisible to everyone except you.” And then because May made sure to drill some manners in him, he added: “How are you?”

“Splendid.” That sounds kind of fake, but okay.

A pregnant silence stretches between them. Peter feels like he should say something, anything really, but Tony had been the one who called him out here. Who – possibly or maybe even probably – stopped by to talk to him again. Why? What does he want?

Just as he’s about to scrape together every little bit of courage he has, Tony sniffs once, standing up straight. “I’ve been thinking. About you and your… let’s call it _unusual_ situation.”

Yeah, unusual is pretty fitting.

“And you found a solution for it?” Peter asks, trying to keep the tone light, but feeling anything but. He wants to beg Tony for a cure, for anything to end this. It’s almost enough to choke him, forcing tears into his eyes.

Knowing that he won’t get his wish makes it even worse.

At least, that’s what Peter thinks.

“No,” Tony says, and then he makes a point of holding eye contact, staring right at him with a determination that Peter hasn’t seen in anyone else yet, “but I will.”

A million thoughts race through Peter’s mind. Is this some sort of astral projecting-related hallucination or did he really say that? Is he joking? He has to be joking. How is he going to help him? Does he already have an idea? What is it? Does it involve the arc reactor? Why isn’t he answering any of his questions?

Turns out, Tony isn’t answering any of the questions because Peter didn’t ask them, too dumbstruck to get any halfway intelligent sound out of his mouth.

Eventually, he manages to gargle out a choked: “What?”

“I’ll help,” Tony repeats, shrugging as if this is no big deal. “Call it scientific curiosity, if you will. I did a bit of research and something like this has never happened before. At least no one’s written about it. And I like defying the odds.” Peter blinks. Does this mean he’s some kind of experiment or project? But does that really matter, if Tony can help him? “Medicine isn’t exactly my field of expertise, but once I became an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics overnight because of a dare, so this should be a piece of cake.”

The more words come out of Tony’s mouth, the more questions Peter has, but he’s still too hung up on his first statement to bother with the rest of them. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“How about whether or not you’re okay with this? Because we actually need to communicate on this and you need to let me know when something-”

“Yes! Yes, of course I’m okay with this! Are you really- Do you really think it might work?”

A smirk appears on Tony’s face. “Hey, I said I’ll find a solution, didn’t I? It’ll work.”

“Holy cow! I can’t- Thank you so, so much, Mr. Stark!” Peter is ready to leap forward and crush him in a hug, but then he remembers that he would fall straight through the man.

It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, like he can breathe easier, like the world around him is suddenly more cheerful and vibrant. He doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life (or whatever you want to call this) as a ghost, as a mere observer instead of a participant. Tears spring into his eyes, but Peter can’t tell if it’s from the burning feeling in his chest or because his enormous smile is starting to hurt.

Tony grins at Peter before sniffing again and clearing his throat. “Don’t mention it, kid. See it as some kind of compensation for me being an asshole the other day.”

“You weren’t-”

“No, I was. The very least I could’ve done was not tell you to your face that I wasn’t coming back.”

There’s this urge in Peter to point out that Tony came back twice, but he has the feeling it wouldn’t be helping their little project. “So, how do we do this? Where do we start? Do you have some kind of machine or something? Oh, do you-”

“First,” Tony says, raising a hand and looking a bit like he wants to place it against Peter’s mouth to physically stop him from continuing, “I’ll say goodbye to Happy. Then, I’ll have to take a look at your body.” Tony grimaces. “Okay, that sounded really wrong on so many levels. But you know what I mean, right?” Peter nods enthusiastically, almost bouncing from all the excitement in his body.

Tony doesn’t talk to Happy - who is completely fine with him leaving because that means he can watch Downton Abbey in peace (Is a teeny-tiny part of Peter grumpy that he’s going to miss a few episodes now? Yes. He started that show, there’s this urge to find out how it will end) – for too long, and then Peter leads him to his room. While Tony is still pressing his phone against one side of his face, partly to look like he isn’t talking to himself and partly to cover his face, Peter can barely contain his excitement.

He’s so excited that for a moment he forgets that normal people have to _open_ doors to walk through them, like Tony having to open the door to the staircase. “It’s weird to see you disappear like that,” Tony comments. Peter gives him a bit of an awkward shrug. “What are the rules for that… ability, anyway? You didn’t fall through the chair you were sitting on.”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, hyper-aware of the feeling of the steps underneath his feet as he climbs up the stairs. “I don’t fall through the ground, either. It’s mostly, like, walls and doors. Maybe it just works on the horizontal axis.” Tony hums in a way that could mean anything, but doesn’t ask any more questions as a few other visitors suddenly appear in the staircase, walking a bit behind them.

When they reach his room, Peter quickly checks to see if the room is empty before Tony enters. Just like always, the room feels unbelievable stuffy, like he can’t properly breathe, and seeing himself lying in that bed, hooked up to all of the machines, is more than weird. Based on the billionaire’s look on his face, Peter isn’t the only one who thinks so. Tony’s eyes jump from the Peter in the bed to the one standing next to it. A wrinkle appears between his eyebrows.

“Okay,” he says, slowly stepping closer. “Okay. So, you’re not actually pranking me.”

“I literally walked _through_ a door, like, two seconds ago. How could I fake that?”

“You would be surprised to find out what technology can do.” Actually, Peter wouldn’t be surprised – he’s a big technology nerd, trying to get his hands on every kind of paper or article about a new breakthrough he can, but before he gets the chance to defend himself, Tony points to the body in the bed. “Can I?”

Peter blinks. “Can you what?”

“Touch you.” Still a bit baffled, Peter nods. For a second, Tony hesitates before pressing one finger against his forearm.

Peter had hoped something would happen, that he would suddenly feel Tony’s touch, that he would feel the pressure against his skin. After all, Tony is the only one who can see him – that has to mean something. But just like all the other times – the doctors and nurses who touch his face or arms for an examination, Ben who grabs and squeezes his hand, May who drops a kiss against his forehead – he doesn’t feel the slightest thing.

“Judging by that frown, you can’t feel that,” Tony says.

“No. I never feel it.” After a pause, he adds: “I thought… well, I thought that because you could see me it might-”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” he mumbles, taking his finger away. “Guess I was wrong.” Hearing the one and only Tony Stark say he was wrong is a bit concerning for Peter, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Tony keeps looking at him for a moment, an intense look in his eyes, the wrinkle between his eyebrows still present. To be honest, Peter kind of expects him to clap his hands, say he has the solution for everything, throw up one of his iconic peace signs and, boom, Peter is back in his body.

That’s not happening, though.

Silence stretches between them. Peter has to suppress the urge to fidget, afraid that he might disrupt Tony in his thinking-process.

Even more silence follows.

Tony continues staring at the body in the bed.

A bad, heavy feeling settles in Peter’s chest. “You have no idea what to do, do you?”

“What?” Tony asks, his head snapping back to him.

Peter nods towards the bed. “You don’t know what to do next.”

“Of course I do,” he says defensively, clearing his throat.

“Then what’s the next step?”

The genius hesitates and, while a big part of Peter is disappointed, it’s not really unexpected. His situation is very unusual. Tony is a mechanic, an inventor, not a… who do you need in a situation like this? A biologist? A guru? Some other kind of spiritual leader? Another bang of disappointment runs through Peter’s body. He doesn’t even know who he should ask for help – assumin he could communicate with them.

Something must show on Peter’s face because Tony walks over to him, snapping his fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “Hey, no sad puppy dog eyes.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were. I said I would find a solution for this, didn’t I?” The boy nods. “So, I will find a solution. Okay, yeah, it might take me longer than the minute you’ve granted me, but I _will_ find it. Okay?”

Peter looks at Tony, at his idol since childhood, at the determined look written all over his face, almost daring him to disagree with him. Tony is right. Of course he is, he’s one of the smartest people on earth. If he says that he’ll find a way to make this stop, then hell find one. All Peter has to do is trust him and be patient.

With a small smile, he nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

“That’s more like it,” Tony says, mirroring his smile with a smirk. “Trust me with this. I know what I’m doing.”

* * *

Tony has no idea what he’s doing.

The one and only reason he lied to the kid – Peter – was because he looked like he would break out in tears any second, and if there’s one thing Tony is worse at than comforting crying kids, it’s comforting crying kids who don’t have a body.

Damned be his curiosity. That and his _Impossibility?-Never-heard-of-her_ -attitude.

To be fair, the combination had worked in his favor for a very long time. It’s what made him build a fully functioning circuit board at the age of four (his curiosity and his father’s stern gaze, the one that always made him feel not smart or good enough), what made him pull countless all-nighters to finish the first AI in the world, what made him perfect all his creations, what made him find a solution for when the arc reactor’s palladium was poisoning everyone who worked on it (meaning him. Back then, he’d been the only one who worked close and long enough to be affected by it).

So, when he found a kid at a hospital who could walk through walls and whose arm went straight through his shoulder, his curiosity wouldn’t let him ignore it. In fact, his curiosity wouldn’t even let him sleep. For hours, Tony searched the internet for near-death experiences, reading countless statements from people who claimed to have seen their own bodies or even been to Heaven – but none of them were what he was looking for.

And a couple of hours later, Tony was absolutely certain that something like this had never happened before.

Which, of course, had made him want to solve it _so_ badly. Not because of the fame or to get some recognition or even to be the first one to figure something out. It’s the almost primal need to find the source behind it, to know how it works. That’s how pretty much all of his obsessions start.

However, this particular obsession comes with a big side effect.

A kid. And Tony doesn’t know how to handle that.

Yes, Peter’s enthusiasm is heartwarming and he definitely isn’t the kind of person who deserves something like this. When he told Tony how long he’d been living like this, Tony felt his loneliness, how he clearly missed talking to people or being seen. Growing up around Howard Stark, Tony knows how it feels to be at least partly invisible. So, yeah, a part of him is doing it to help the kid out.

But the problem is that sometimes, figuring stuff out takes time. It took Tony decades and then three months in a cave in Afghanistan to work out the arc reactor. Combined with his father’s efforts, it took him even longer to create an element to replace the palladium in it. Considering that this entire astral projecting stuff isn’t what Tony usually does at all, it could take a very long time until he finds a solution for it.

Tony can’t do that to the kid. First of all, nobody knows how long Peter’s body will actually allow it. Something could happen that worsens his condition dramatically – or his body could just give up entirely. Then there’s the question about how long the hospital will keep him in this state. And don’t even get him started on the entire mental and emotional aspect of it. So, in conclusion, with Peter being there, looking at him with those big eyes full of hope (the same eyes that made Tony feel like an asshole when he said he wouldn’t come back to the hospital anymore), there’s quite some pressure on his shoulders that Tony really doesn’t need to figure this out.

However, he does need Peter’s help. There’s absolutely no way Tony can do it without him.

His curiosity trumps his uneasiness of being responsible for this young person’s life, which is why he tries to push away the question of what would happen to Peter if Tony doesn’t find a solution for this and instead tries to come up with more disguises, so no one will get suspicious about Tony Stark just hanging around a hospital in Queens.

“I’ve been thinking,” Tony says, leaning back against the bench, phone once again pressed against his ear. It’s been a week since they first met, and Tony’s done his best to stop by every other day (partly to work on this mystery, and partly because he feels a tiny bit guilty whenever he leaves the kid alone, knowing that he has no one else to talk to). They sit in a little park area by the hospital, shielded from pedestrians and a bit further away from the hospital staff and the visitors.

Peter looks at him, eyes so big and once again full of hope. Whenever he has that particular look, Tony has to fight the urge to physically turn away, because he knows that look will change soon enough into one full of hurt and disappointment when Tony messes up (and based on all of his past experiences, it’s _when_ , not _if_ ). “And?”

“There’s nothing more I can do here.” Tony immediately notices that he used the wrong words as the hope in the kid’s eyes melts away. “As in here in the hospital, I mean. Not in general.”

At once, Peter relaxes again, letting go of a breath he’d been holding. “So, what’s the plan then?”

“You need to come to my lab with me.”

A string of emotions passes over Peter’s face, so many and so fast that Tony can’t recognize them all. He thinks he sees something like wonder and excitement but far too quickly they’re replaced with the by now familiar look of worry. “To your lab?”

“Yeah. There are a couple of tests I would like to do, and it would be pretty much the opposite of subtle if I brought all the machines here for them. It’s way easier to do them there. Plus, we don’t have to keep the entire I’m-just-talking-on-the-phone-charade up. And Happy got discharged yesterday. People will start asking questions if they recognize me.”

Nervously, Peter pulls his brows together and his sleeves down over his fingers, planting his feet on the ground to keep them from bouncing. By now, Tony knows he does this because he thinks he’s annoying Tony with his fidgeting – there are a few other things Tony noticed, too. Like Peter is clearly trying not to be clingy.

And the worst part?

Tony is grateful for that.

He’s not used to clingy. There’s a reason why he let Pepper handle his one-night-stands, and even now neither Pepper, Rhodey, or Happy are clingy – if anything, Tony is the clingiest of all of them, demanding their attention when he isn’t holed up in his workshop, and even he knows that that happens way too rarely to be really classified as clingy.

But seeing as Tony is the only one who can interact with Peter, it wasn’t that unpredictable that he would imprint on him like a duckling on its mother’s butt. Only in this case, Tony is said ass.

Clearly not the kid’s best decision, but it’s also his only option.

And for the record: Tony is really trying, okay? He makes a point of stopping by and talking for a little longer than necessary. He doesn’t cut the kid off when he starts to ramble (but to be fair, Peter stops his rambling by himself fast enough, face bright red, mumbling a timid sorry when he notices it). He doesn’t tell him about how Tony is still wandering through the dark with no leads whatsoever.

Which is why these tests are so important. Tony needs at least some evidence that he isn’t hallucinating the entire thing that’s going on.

“Your lab isn’t in the hospital,” Peter says, looking like he’s just seen a ghost.

“Yeah. I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t actually come here that often.”

“No, I know that,” he quickly says, cheeks turning red. “It’s just… I, uh-”

“You what?”

“I’ve never left the hospital before, like this.”

“We’re sitting outside.”

“Yeah, but technically, this is still the hospital. I’ve never left its grounds.”

There’s another quip on Tony’s lips but he stops himself, taking in the kid’s nervous appearance. No, not nervous – he’s afraid. Afraid of leaving the place where his body is. Tony can’t really blame him, to be honest. They have no idea if Peter will notice if something is happening to his body or if he’d even be able to wake up at all without his body and soul being close to each other.

Peter obviously needs someone to give him a little pep talk and reassure him that everything will work out fine.

Did Tony already mention that he’s absolutely not up for that task? Usually when he has to reassure someone, it’s about one of his new creations not blowing up or that it will actually make a profit. Still, he needs Peter to come with him. Which means he has to do this.

“Hey, Peter,” he says, trying to keep his voice as soft and stable as he can in an attempt to create some sense of reassurance for the kid. Tony waits a second until Peter looks him in the eyes, his own just as full of emotion as they always are – which isn’t making this any easier. “It will be fine.”

“How do you know that?” he whispers, still sounding way too afraid.

Yeah, that’s a good question. How does Tony know that?

“Because I won’t let it be anything else but fine.”

It’s a shitty explanation, one Rhodey and Pepper would’ve graced with a scoff if he was luckily, demanding to hear the real source of his confidence and therefore exposing him for having no reason to be confident at all.

But Peter is different, because he believes Tony’s words. Tony can pinpoint the exact moment Peter finds whatever he’s looking for in Tony’s face. The worry washes out of his eyes and is replaced by a fragile – but still there – confidence. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Peter takes a deep breath, standing up from the bench and looking to the other side of the small park – the side where the hospital officially ends. “Let’s do this.”

There’s a look in the kid’s eyes that makes Tony want to tell him to slow down, that he doesn’t have to push himself if he isn’t ready yet, but he ignores that urge. They have to leave the hospital to move along and, like he already mentioned, they’re kind of on the clock with this entire thing. So, Tony stands up as well, nodding towards where his car is parked. “Alright. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

With every step they take, it becomes clearer and clearer that Peter isn’t ready to leave the hospital yet. Tony has to stop himself three times from calling the entire mission off and considering how short the journey to the car is, that’s saying something. But Peter doesn’t say anything, so Tony doesn’t either.

Tony barely notices it when he steps over the invisible border, only catching up to what’s happening when Peter suddenly stops, looking at the ground like he’s trying to solve an especially difficult puzzle.

“You can do it, kiddo,” Tony encourages him. “Everything will be fine.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles, not sounding convinced at all. However, before Tony can so much as think about another way to encourage him, the kid takes a deep breath, lifts his foot, and sets it down only a couple of inches in front of the other one.

Both of them wait and hold their breath.

It’s surprisingly undramatic. Peter doesn’t suddenly get beamed up into the hospital. He doesn’t turn into dust or some weird light or anything else. He doesn’t get thrown backwards like he hit a strong force field.

Nothing happens.

It’s almost boring.

Only now, boring is good, which is a slightly foreign concept for Tony.

Peter’s head snaps up, looking at him with his eyes as big as tennis balls, like he just made an absolutely incredible scientific breakthrough. “Nothing happened.”

“Of course, nothing happened,” Tony says with a smirk. “I said it would be fine, didn’t I? Are you questioning my judgement?” Peter chuckles, not thinking too much about Tony’s joke which the genius is quite grateful for, and catches up to him, joining him on the few feet journey to the sleek, black car. “Ready to see my lab, kid?”

Peter’s smile is bright enough to power all of New York and the suburbs during Christmas time. “Absolutely.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I'm so glad all of you enjoyed the first chapter! :) Thank you for the kudos, comments and nice messages you sent me! 
> 
> Now, enjoy! :)

**  
**

Turns out, Peter can walk through car doors just as easily as he can walk through any other door.

The second the kid settles into the seat, his eyes grow, taking in the interior of the car. “Whoa…”

Tony can’t help but smirk. “You like it?”

“I’ve never been in a car like this before,” he answers, leaning closer to the dashboard to get a better look at all the gadgets and other stuff Tony built in.

“So, are you into cars?” Tony asks, trying to find something they might have in common, something that would make the conversation between them a bit easier – and so that they have something to talk about besides the very obvious elephant in the room.

However, Peter crushes his hopes when he shakes his head. “No, not really. But this is… _really_ nice.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he says, starting the engine and bringing the car to life.

“ _Back to the Tower, boss?”_ FRIDAY immediately chimes up, already pulling up the map on his display, highlighting the fastest route. _“There is an unusual amount of traffic on your normal route. I took the liberty of recalculating a new one for you.”_

“Thanks, FRI, you’re a doll.”

_“Just as usual.”_

Tony’s scoff gets drowned out by Peter’s excited gasp. “That- Was that an AI? Like Siri? Or Alexa? Did you build it into your car?”

“Okay, first rule: do not compare my AIs to Siri or Alexa. Those two can’t even do a fraction of what my very first AI could do, okay?”

_“Excuse me?”_ FRIDAY says, talking over Peter who waits politely – and quite impatiently – with his mouth still open.

Right. He forgot about the AI who literally goes anywhere he goes and who he built into every room and somewhat intelligent device he owns. Whenever he went to the hospital, Tony put her into the equivalent of a sleeping mode, not wanting to disturb other patients and visitors or accidently record something that isn’t meant for his eyes and ears.

Which also means she doesn’t know who Peter is. FRIDAY is aware that he found a new obsession, but that’s not unusual. He once spent four days straight becoming as close to an art expert as he could be when he wanted to buy a painting for Pepper’s birthday. When Rhodey complained that he couldn’t find a gift for his niece Riri’s birthday, Tony went into a deep search about what pre-teen girls are into these days – some of those things, he can never forget.

Finding a slightly weird obsession isn’t new – the talking to no one part is. “No, FRI, I wasn’t talking to you.”

_“When did you develop the habit of talking to yourself?”_

“Just now, don’t worry about it.” He glances back at Peter who still looks like he’s ready to ask a million questions at once. There’s no way Tony can ignore him whenever FRIDAY is around because she’s _always_ around. And he can’t simply turn her off the entire time, seeing as she’s managing basically the entire Stark Tower, from the security system to the light switches. Now, none of this would be a problem if FRIDAY wouldn’t have the annoying habit of alerting Pepper or Rhodey whenever he’s showing _concerning_ behavior, no matter how much he insists that he’s fine. (Okay, yeah, FRIDAY had been right pretty much every single time, but will he ever admit it? Definitely not.)

“FRIDAY, we’re starting a new project. Right now,” Tony decides, pulling into the traffic and giving Peter a sign to stay quiet for a few more seconds. “We call it… Project Ghost Boy.” Peter gives him an unimpressed look. However, Tony thinks he’s being very funny. “Whenever I’m working on that project, don’t assume I’m talking to you unless I actually call for you. You will warn me whenever someone is about to enter the room I’m in. And every file will be, like, triple encrypted. No, scratch that – think about the encryption we have for all the arc reactor files. Now double that.”

The AI hesitates – which is never a good sign. _“Boss, there are no other files with such high security measures.”_

“Well, there’s a first for everything.”

_“It would also mean that neither Colonel Rhodes nor Miss Potts have access to them.”_

“That’s kinda the point. Nobody besides me should know about them.”

_“That would interfere with the_ Safety Brakes Protocol _which lets-”_

“I know what that protocol does, I was the one who wrote it while having one of my worst hangovers of my life. And now I’m telling you that this new project will trump the protocol.” Nothing but silence comes from the AI. Tony switches lanes. The silence feels kind of judgy. “FRIDAY, I need you to actually confirm to me that you won’t tell anyone, and I mean _anyone_ , about this project.”

“ _Very well_ ,” she says, and Tony feels the tension in his shoulders melt away. _“I installed the security measures you requested and set up everything for Project Ghost Boy. But I would like to add that I do not endorse this.”_

“Of course you don’t,” he scoffs. “Remind me why you’re so sassy again?”

_“Because you chose to program me this way, boss.”_

“Ah, yes, the entire thing about bossy women keeping me in check.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Peter scrunch up his face. “Alright, that’s enough fun. I’ll start working on Project Ghost Boy now.” The AI lets out a short jingle to indicate the new installments have been activated. “No need to hold your tongue now, kid.”

“You have an AI in your car,” Peter says, and even though it technically isn’t a question, it definitely sounds like one.

“Yeah. In all of my cars and the entire Stark Tower as well as pretty much every electronic device, from my phone to my watch, all the way to my coffee machine.”

“Your coffee machine?”

“She’s better than any hipster barista in all of New York.”

Peter chuckles at that and for a second, Tony thinks the kid might ask more questions, but then his attention gets pulled away by something he sees through his window. A part of Tony wants to revive the conversation – he just created the new protocol, and now they don’t even need it? That’s a bit rude – but he remembers that this is Peter’s first time out of the hospital for weeks. And who knows? Maybe he isn’t into science as much as Tony hoped.

The drive to the Stark Tower is smooth, thanks to FRIDAY keeping an eye on the traffic. Tony parks in their private parking space, lining this car up next to his seven other cars (all Audis, except for the old-timer) and the car he bought Pepper that she barely uses. Peter looks like he’s bursting with questions, but he keeps his mouth shut, following Tony in a kind of silent awe, taking in every little detail.

Tony, on the other side, is growing a little bit nervous – not necessarily because he’s showing off the Tower, but because he’s used to the kid talking, even if he stops himself after a few minutes. Not hearing him ramble about what happened at the hospital is weird.

So, yeah, Tony is a tiny bit relieved when the doors of the elevator open with an almost soundless _ding_ and the lights in the lab turn themselves on, illuminating the entire place. “Welcome to my playground, kiddo.”

“Woah…” Peter says, stopping just out of the elevator doors. “This is… insane!” Tony scoffs, weirdly pleased about Peter’s reaction, and for a second he simply watches how the kid tentatively moves forward, his eyes jumping between the blue holo-screens to all the (messy) workbenches to DUM-E and U in the corner. “What did he do?” Peter asks, pointing to the dunce hat that DUM-E is wearing.

“He played around with the fire extinguisher. Again. The entire place looked like a blizzard indoors.” DUM-E lifts his arm, opening and closing his claw in a way too familiar way. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. You know exactly what you did, so don’t chirp in that tone at me.” DUM-E lowers his arm in disappointment.

“They understand you,” Peter points out, moving closer to the robots, who are seemingly lost in their own conversation, completely oblivious to the invisible person in the room.

“’Course they do. That’s what AIs tend to do.” While Peter examines the robots, Tony pulls up a holo-screen, tapping away on it. “I made DUM-E over there when I was in MIT, not that much older than you when I come to think about it.”

“That’s so cool,” Peter mutters, moving out of the way when DUM-E whirls around, the robot’s claw missing him by a few inches.

“Stand over here, will you?” Tony asks him, pointing to a spot in the middle of the room. “I wanna do a few scans.”

“What kind of scans?” he asks back, but moves towards the spot anyway.

“Just anything that will tell me I’m not talking to the air,” Tony mumbles, not quite quiet enough. It takes him a second to notice the hurt look on Peter’s eyes, and he immediately feels like someone kicked him in the stomach. Right. He shouldn’t say anything about Peter possibly only being a hallucination when the kid is anyway near him. “Not that I actually think that, of course, it’s more of a-”

“I get it,” Peter says, shaking his head dismissively. It does nothing to make Tony feel any less kicked-in-the-stomach-like. “This entire thing is crazy. Like… I would probably do the same. That’s how crazy it is.” He clears his throat, looking back to the robots. “So, uh, what do the scans say?”

Tony blinks once, trying to decide if he should circle back to apologizing, but he doesn’t push it. Besides, he’s not good at apologizing anyways. Too little practice. “Well,” he says, swiping through the results of the scans like drunk college students through Tinder matches. They’re all expectably non-expressive, showing not a single change in the room.

Except one.

Tony can’t help but smirk. Good to know he’s not actually going crazy. “May I introduce you to the evidence that you’re here,” Tony says, flipping the screen around with a flick of his wrist and showing the results of the scan to Peter.

The kid stares at the screen, eyes flowing over the stats and unfamiliar words, no doubt trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. “That’s my-”

“Your brain, yes,” Tony helps him. “Well, not your brain exactly, but the electrical exchange of the neurons in your brain. The brain scans at the hospital showed no abnormal brain activity for someone who’s in a coma, but since you’re obviously experiencing things, I figured that that activity has to show up somewhere.” He taps the screen again. “Okay, yeah, it’s barely there. If I hadn’t tinkered around with the sensors of my scanners these last few days, they might not have picked it up, but… here it is.”

Peter huffs out a puff of air, something between a laugh and a normal breath. “So, neither one of us is going crazy.”

“Not yet, at least. It’s real.” This time, it sounds more like a laugh.

Tony would’ve granted Peter all the time in the world to enjoy this feeling, the feeling of knowing you aren’t going crazy (Tony knows exactly how that feels), but like so many other things in his life, he’s bound to a schedule, and since he started dating Pepper, her habit of actually sticking to said schedule rubbed off on him.

“Hate to end this,” he says, letting the screen disappear with yet another wrist flick, “but we need to roll.”

“Need to roll?” Peter asks, blinking a couple of times. “Where?”

“To your home, of course.”

His back is turned to Peter as he grabs his phone and keys again and that’s why he doesn’t see how the joyful expression drops from the kid’s face in an instant.

* * *

This entire day has been nothing but a rollercoaster of emotions for Peter. First the usual joy of simply talking to someone, then the anxiety about leaving the hospital, the excitement of being in Tony Stark’s lab, the relief of seeing actual proof that this is real, then –you know that feeling when you’re riding a rollercoaster and suddenly there’s an unexpected drop and it feels like you’re falling and your intestines are somewhere left behind you and you can feel the entire force of gravity pushing against you while your heart is beating in your throat, threatening to jump out as soon as it gets the chance?

That’s how Peter feels.

He’s not ready to go back home.

And yet he still sits in Tony’s car, stiff as a board and thinking if he’d eaten something in the past four weeks, he might throw it up any second now.

It’s not like doesn’t want to go back to the small apartment that he shares with May and Ben. Quite the opposite, actually. He wants to go back there so badly.

He wants to taste May’s bad cooking (he hasn’t food since he first woke up, and even though he doesn’t need it in his current state, he misses it so much that he would eat _anything_ May put in front of him, no matter how charred it is), he wants to watch sports with Ben with paint smeared across their faces (Peter isn’t really that much of a sports fan, but Ben gets so passionate about it that it’s impossible not to have fun watching any game with him), he wants to curl up on their old couch with his favorite mug that is a little bit chipped, he wants to loudly complain about the walls being too thin when his neighbor is blasting their music, he wants to laugh and cry and smile and live in the place that has been more of a home to him than the already blurry house in his memories where he lived with his parents.

He wants to go back there as Peter, not as this ghost version of himself.

But he can’t tell Tony that. First of all, it would make him look like a little kid. Tony already calls him _kid_ and _kiddo_ the entire time (so often, in fact, that Peter kind of thinks the man forgot his name), Peter doesn’t want to add oil to that particular fire by behaving like a kid, too. Even though he very much feels like a helpless kid, he doesn’t want Tony seeing him as one.

And second, it’s the next logical step. Retracing his steps, trying to get him to remember what happened, so they find a clue to how to solve this. Peter is sure that walking through Queens, most likely visiting the place where he got shot, will be the next point on their agenda.

So, yeah, going back to the apartment makes sense.

But that doesn’t mean Peter likes it.

He is uncharacteristically quiet on the seemingly endless drive from the Stark Tower to the humble apartment in Queens. If Tony is bothered by it, he doesn’t mention it, only softly humming along to the song on the radio. Peter’s entire body is rigid, his hands balled into fists to keep them from shaking.

It doesn’t get better when Tony stops the car in front of the familiar building. Standing in front of it now, it seems just as looming as the Stark Tower earlier, none of its usual comfort recognizable.

“Ready?” Tony asks underneath his breath, pulling the baseball cap deeper over his face as two chatting ladies pass them.

No. Not at all. Like, the complete opposite of ready. Still, Peter lies and says: “Yeah.”

They sneak into the building when someone leaves through the front door, slipping inside before the door can fall shut. When Peter tells him they have to walk all the way to the seventh floor – because the elevator is still broken – Tony grimaces, but doesn’t say anything. Peter shows him where they hide the spare key, and he can see the silent question Tony isn’t asking, for Peter to check if anyone is home, because the last thing they need is May and Ben reporting Tony for breaking into their home.

Peter _really_ doesn’t want to take a peek inside by himself. So, he says it’s not necessary, that he knows both of their schedules and there’s no way they’re home. He remains right. As Tony swiftly unlocks the door, they walk into a dark, silent apartment.

Immediately, Peter’s heart starts to ache as tears spring into his eyes. God, he missed – _misses_ – this so much! He can’t even put it in words. Never before has he felt a longing like this, not even when he lost his parents.

Tony shifts his weight behind him, and Peter tries his best to pull himself together. “Yeah, uh,” he stutters, clearing his throat, “my room is at the end of the hall.”

“Lead the way,” he says softly. Peter nods, making his way towards his room, pretending his legs aren’t trembling like thin branches during a storm, threatening to snap at any given moment. On the way, his eyes fall on May’s favorite cardigan, the one that’s way too large for her and covered in colorful prints, hanging over the kitchen chair.

A sharp pain cuts through Peter’s head.

_“This has to stop,” May says, hands on her hips, the large cardigan slipping off one shoulder._

_“Whatever,” Peter mumbles, eyes on the ground as he lets his backpack slide from his shoulder. The glowing embers of his annoyance grow into a small fire. He should’ve tried climbing up the fire escape. All he wants to do is slip back into his room and turn up his music until he can’t hear his own thoughts anymore, and now his guardians are blocking his way._

_“Peter, this is the fifth time this month that you’re late,” Ben says. His voice is a lot sterner than May’s, and he pulls back his shoulders, rising to his full height. It makes Peter even angrier._

_If the teenager is completely honest, he’s not sure where his uncharacteristic rebellion and the untamable urge to talk back and be difficult is coming from, but it’s undoubtedly there, prickling under his skin, making him feel like a growling animal waiting for the perfect moment to attack._

_Peter keeps his head low, trying his best to school his face into a blank mask, ignoring the vibration building up in his chest._

_“You were supposed to be home two hours ago,” May begins, blocking his way as he makes a move to his room._

_“I’m home now,” Peter answers, aware of how prickly his tone is._

_“Don’t get sassy with me.”_

_“Where were you?” Ben asks._

_“I was with Ned.”_

_“No, you weren’t. We called him. You weren’t with him today or any of the other times.”_

_The small fire in his gut grows and grows, feeding on his guardians’ anger and words, whispering twisted versions of them into his ear. “What? Now you’re_ spying _on me? What’s next, implanting a tracker into my dental fillings?”_

_“Don’t blow this out of proportion,” May cuts in. Her cheeks are reddened with anger and the way she crosses and uncrosses her arms in front of her chest is a clear tell to how she is slowly losing her patience. Somehow, that is very satisfying for Peter._

_“Where were you?” Ben repeats before Peter gets a chance to defend himself._

_“Just walking around.” And that’s true. He wasn’t even doing anything special, mostly sitting in one park or another, watching the people walk by, maybe looking into a few dumpsters for some salvageable tech parts, but it wasn’t like he had a plan. The goal was to stay away from home where he felt strangely caged in, annoyed as soon as his aunt or uncle as much as said one word to him._

_A part of Peter tells him it’s just a bad mix of puberty, depression, and missing his parents, that the entire world (and May and Ben) isn’t actually against him, trying to make his life as difficult as possible, but the other, stronger, more violent part screams at him that he’s absolutely correct to behave this way, that there’s no other logical way for him to react to their seemingly stupid rules and restrictions._

_“Walking around?” Ben echoes, raising an eyebrow._

_Peter grimaces. “Yeah, I just said that, didn’t I?”_

_“Why were you walking around?” May asks, putting a hand on Ben’s arm, silently stopping the words already on the tip of his tongue._

_The teenager shrugs. “Just because.”_

_“Peter, if there’s anything you wanna talk about-”_

_“There’s_ nothing _to talk about,” Peter growls, the fire inside him surging, doubling in size. “I was just walking around.”_

_“We don’t want you walking around at night,” Ben says before May can stop him again._

_“Why? I’m not a kid anymore! I can look after myself. And it’s not even that late.”_

_“Peter-” May starts again, trying her best to stay calm, but it’s too late for that._

_The anger inside Peter already corrupted every single logical thought in his brain, warping the adults’ concern into_ We don’t trust you. You’re just a kid. You have to do what we say. We know better _. “No! I’m not a little kid anymore! Stop treating me like one!”_

_“Son-” Ben warns and Peter explodes._

_“I’m not your son!” he screams, his head snapping up. For a second, he registers the shocked and hurt expression on their faces, but it’s too late to stop. His entire vision is tinted red, the blood running through his veins boiling, and he just can’t stop. “I never was and never will be, so stop pretending this is anything but a makeshift solution until I’m eighteen! God, I wish I just would’ve died with them, because at least then I’d be with people who want me!”_

_There’s a moment where they all just stare at each other, May and Ben with wide eyes, shocked by what they just heard, and Peter somewhat calmer now that he’s let go of some of the anger inside him. For one moment that’s simultaneously a fraction of a second and an eternity, they stare, the silence of the apartment suffocating._

_May inhales, but Peter doesn’t stick around to hear what she has to say – he turns around and flees the apartment and onto the streets of Queens, the rain pouring, doing nothing to calm down the raging wildfire inside him._

Someone snaps their fingers in front of Peter’s face. “Hey, you still with me?”

Peter blinks, shaking his head a little. “What?” The face attached to the snapping fingers comes into focus, and Peter needs a second to remember why Tony Stark is standing in his home. A giant lump is in his throat and his nose tickles in a way that tells him tears aren’t that far away, so he does his best to clear his throat and turns his head. “Y-Yeah. Uh, sorry.”

“You kinda spaced out there for a second,” he says. “Did you remember something?”

Peter shakes his head. “Nothing important.”

Tony knits his brows together, obviously not believing him. “Y’know, if watching movies has taught me anything, it’s that it’s never not important when the person with temporary amnesia who is trying to figure out what happened to them remembers something.”

Despite the painful feeling of guilt clenched in his chest (how could he say those things to May and Ben? Peter knows those words haven’t been true. He loves them and he doesn’t want to be dead and he would give anything to let them know how sorry he is and how much he misses them), Peter laughs. He sees the ghost of a smile on Tony’s face. “I fought with May and Ben and then ran out of the door,” he answers.

“What did you fight about?”

“Me being a brat.” Tony huffs out a puff of air and he looks like he wants to say something else, but Peter _really_ doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. “My room is just over there,” he says instead, and the billionaire accepts the change of the subject. Theoretically, Peter could’ve just floated into his room but he’s too nervous to do that, so instead he waits for Tony to open the door to enter.

His room looks almost like he remembers it. The biggest difference is that someone picked up his dirty laundry from the chair in the corner and that his computer is turned off. His bed is made, something Peter never does because he always takes advantage of every single second he has to stay in bed longer. Other than that, everything is the same. Old tech parts are piled up on pretty much every surface that aren’t already occupied with Lego models, school books or other little trinkets. There’s a half-disassembled DVD player sitting in front of his computer.

Suddenly, the reality hits Peter like a truck – he’s standing with _Tony Stark_ in his room that is filled with stuff he found in dumpsters after literally coming from the best lab in the entire state with stuff so new it’s practically shiny and has the iconic new-smell. Peter’s cheeks heat up and he starts stuttering, trying to find any words that will make it seem less pathetic. God, he really wishes he could touch stuff just so he could hide this mess!

However, Tony doesn’t seem to be listening. His eyes fly across the room, climbing over the tech parts and the various school projects and books on his desk and the many books (including no less than three biographies of Tony himself – seriously, could this get any more embarrassing?) on his book shelves. Eventually, interrupting Peter in his senseless ramble, Tony points to the DVD player on his desk. “That’s yours?”

“Y-Yeah,” Peter says, watching Tony take it between his hands and turn it around.

“Where did you get it? Thrift store? Salvation army?”

“No, uh… the garbage.” He kind of expects Tony to let the DVD player fall out of his hands, disgusted by that little fact, but it doesn’t happen.

“And all of these-” Tony continues, pointing to his other projects, “are yours? You go to Midtown? The Midtown school for little science nerds?” Despite Peter thinking it would be impossible, his cheeks heat up even more as he nods. Tony grabs a folder from his desk – the portfolio from his last Science project – and thumbs through it, eyes flying over the pages, seemingly absorbing everything. “And you’re a good student.”

“Well, I mean, that’s completely subjective, so-”

Tony turns the folder around, pointing to the spot where Mrs. Warren wrote his grade in red pen. “You got 100%, kid. And a smiley face.”

“I don’t think a smiley face is a universal standard for-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony asks, and if Peter isn’t mistaken, he sounds somewhat hurt.

“Tell you what?” he asks back, not knowing where this is going.

“About this!” He spreads his arms, pointing to all the school stuff and other little projects. “That you like science and building and that you’re _good_ at it.”

“I’m not that-”

“Kid, just from reading half of your introduction I know you could keep up with my R&D team.” Tony huffs out another laugh, shifting his attention back to the folder in his hand. “This entire time, I’ve been trying to find something we could talk about that doesn’t involve your consciousness leaving your body, and then, out of all things, it’s _technology_ and _science_.”

Peter doesn’t know how to answer. There had been plenty of times Peter wanted to ask Tony about the arc reactor or the element he created or any of his other projects, but he’d always held his tongue, worried that the man would be annoyed by him. And, yeah, back in the lab Peter didn’t really need Tony to explain those scans to him, but he hadn’t even had a chance to mention it because Tony was already talking and May and Ben taught him that it was rude to interrupt people.

Tony looks at him again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I, uh… thought it was kinda obvious.”

“Obvious? Obvious how?” Peter points to the shirt he’s been wearing for the past four weeks, the one with the faded but still legible science pun on it. Tony blinks twice at it. “That means nothing. Do you know how many teenagers wear shirts from old rock bands for the aesthetic or whatever?”

“What kind of aesthetic involves nerdy shirts?”

“Listen, I don’t know what goes on in the brains of teenagers, it’s been a long thime since I was one.” Peter opens his mouth, but before he can make a single sound, Tony points a finger at him. “Don’t you _dare_ make a joke about my age. I’m the only one who can see you, remember?” Peter soundly shuts his mouth again.

Tony continues to look through his projects, picking up folder after folder, snorting or lifting his eyebrows from time to time as he reads them. Seeing it makes Peter extremely nervous because _Tony Stark_ is reading his shitty school projects. That’s not how Peter wants him to see his work. He had had an entire plan about how he would have to find an absolutely impressive and mind-blowing project at MIT (if he could get in) that he could add to his application for SI.

“Shouldn’t we search for clues or something?” Peter eventually asks as Tony picks up the fourth folder.

The billionaire looks at him, blinking like he has to remind himself that they’re not exactly here so Tony can go through his school work. “Well, have _you_ found anything? Anything that helps you remember something or that makes you feel…” Tony is searching for the right word, waving a hand through the air, “less astral projecting-y?”

Peter takes another look at his room, focusing on different things, hoping that they might spark something – anything – in him, but it’s fruitless. No memories, no sudden revelations, no anything. So, all he can do is shake his head no.

Tony nods once. Then, he holds up the folder in his hand. “Do you have more of these?”

“What?”

“Do you have any more of these projects? Or are these the only ones?”

“I have a couple more on my computer, but why-” Before Peter can even finish his question, Tony is moving towards the computer, switching it on and impatiently drumming his fingers against the desk. “What are you doing?”

“I wanna copy them onto this,” he says, fishing out a hard drive from somewhere in his jacket.

“Why?”

“So I can read them, of course. It would probably be a tad suspicious if I took the folders and your computer with me.”

“No, I mean, why do you want to read them?”

Tony whirls around in his chair to look at Peter, a questioning look on his face. “Why? Why _wouldn’t_ I want to read them?”

Peter looks back with the exact same expression. “Because some High Schooler wrote them and you’ve probably read, like, at least one thousand things that are way better than that.”

“You’re right about two things there, kiddo. You are a High School student and I’ve read at least one thousand papers. But because I’ve read so many, I recognize when something is good. And these-” He taps the folders, “-these are good. So good, that I wanna read more of them.”

For a second, Peter can do nothing but stare at him. Did… Did _the_ Tony Stark, his idol for as long as he’s alive, just tell him he wants to read his projects? His science projects? Because they’re good? Maybe he really is dead and went to Heaven. Because this can’t be real.

“They’re not good,” Peter says again, the need to knock himself off the pedestal almost overwhelming. “They’re just school projects I had to crunch out in two days because I procrastinated on them. Nothing groundbreaking.”

Tony shrugs. “Well, if these aren’t good, then I can’t wait to read what you’re gonna come up with in the future. The stuff that you will consider good.”

In that moment, Peter is absolutely sure that he will never produce anything that he will consider good enough for Tony Stark to read. That’s, like, physically impossible.

“So,” Tony says, pulling him out of his thoughts, “are you gonna tell me your password or do I have to find it out myself? And don’t think I can’t hack into a High Schooler’s computer, no matter how impressive your little projects are. I hacked the Pentagon when I was fifteen, something like this is no problem.”

“You hacked the what?”

“You heard me. Now, the password?” Peter hears himself telling Tony his password and a second later, seeing his familiar desktop background. “Which folder is it?”

Peter realizes this is his last chance to back out. The way Tony is looking at him, Peter can tell he would drop the entire issue if Peter really doesn’t want him to read them. But the thing is… he doesn’t want to back out. Not really.

Has he been absolutely mortified when Tony found all his projects and papers? Yes, because they were assignments he had to do, most of them written in a few hours because he forgot about them, the research not thorough enough, relying on Peter’s memory most of the time – they are just homework. They aren’t a real reflection of what he’s capable of when he’s really into a project.

Tony Stark reading his papers has been a dream of Peter’s for so many years now, and now he’s so close to it becoming reality. It already is reality, seeing that Tony still has the folder in one hand. And even though they aren’t impressive or worth-reading (at least in Peter’s opinion), Tony wants to read more.

To be honest, he would be an idiot to pass that opportunity.

“It’s that one,” Peter says, pointing to the folder in question. Tony is already copying it onto his hard drive when the kid adds: “But there’s some… weird stuff on there.”

“Like a presentation about why Finding Nemo is the best Pixar movie?” Tony asks, a smirk pulling on his lips as he watches the files plop up on his hard drive. “I’m curious. What kind of class was that for?”

“It wasn’t for a class,” he answers, face burning up once more. “My friends and I do this thing where we hold presentations about stuff to practice for actual school presentations.”

Tony huffs out a puff of air, eyes still on the computer screen. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

Peter stays quiet again, not knowing what to say. He’s hyper aware of the fact that several of his projects and presentations (the ones for school and the ones for fun) mention Tony and his work. There’s an entire presentation where Peter talks about Tony surpassing his father, how his work is better and that they should replace Howard with Tony on their wall of groundbreaking scientists in Mrs. Warren’s classroom. Including a selection of pictures they could hang up. There’s no chance that Tony won’t pick up on it when he’s looking through his stuff.

On the other side, Tony must’ve seen the books he has about him. Peter just hopes that he won’t think he’s some crazy fan or anything.

Not a second after Tony slipped the hard drive back into his pocket, the voice of his AI FRIDAY fills the room. “ _I am sorry to interrupt_ ,” she says, and Peter realizes it comes from Tony’s watch, “ _but if you want to get back to the Stark Tower before Miss Potts finishes work, you will have to leave now.”_

“Well, looks like we’re finished here anyway,” Tony says, throwing Peter a questioning look. “Or is there anything else you wanna do here?”

Looking around his room once more, feeling how his heart is aching and hurting and thinking about how badly he wants to slip underneath his blanket and stay there until everything is back to normal, Peter shakes his head no. He promises himself that the next time he comes back to the apartment, he will be in his body.

They’re quick to leave the apartment and hurry back to the car, hoping that no one recognized Tony and called the paparazzi or anything. Rumors of a disguised Tony leaving some apartment in Queens are one of the last things they need right now. Plus, Peter imagines that Tony’s girlfriend wouldn’t be too happy about it.

It takes Peter a few minutes to recognize where they’re headed. “You’re driving back to the hospital?”

“Yeah.” Tony throws him a side glance. “Why? Do you wanna go somewhere else?”

Somehow, when he’d stepped over the invisible line of the hospital earlier today, Peter hadn’t really thought about returning to it, too focused on finding the courage to leave in the first place. It’s logical that Tony would bring him back here. The billionaire offered to help him out with this entire dilemma, that doesn’t mean he invited him for sleepovers or whatever. Peter doesn’t know why he thought he would keep staying with Tony.

Because the man seems to expect an answer, Peter clears his throat. “No. Of course not. I mean, where else would I go?”

Tony gives him a look that tells Peter he’s not really buying what he’s saying, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, he sniffs once. “We should talk about what to do next.”

“Okay,” he answers, gladly taking this olive branch that is a safe topic to talk about. “Do you have something in mind?”

“I thought we should visit the place where you got shot.”

Peter fully expected to hear those words, but they still make him feel queasy. Oh, how grateful he is that he doesn’t have a stomach right now, because if he did, he would probably throw up. Despite the uneasiness inside him, he nods sharply. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Are you up for that?” Tony asks, throwing him another glance. If Peter weren’t so focused on keeping calm, he would’ve noticed the concerned expression on his face. “We could push it back a little bit. I mean, it must be daunting thought and if you aren’t ready-”

“I am,” he interrupts him.

“Well, you don’t look ready.”

“I am ready,” he repeats and this time he at least tries to sound confident. Tony raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Okay, it _is_ a scary thought, but I know we need to do that. It might help me get back in my body.”

The man next to him doesn’t look completely convinced, but he stays quiet. Peter thinks it’s because they don’t have any other idea what they could do next, and also because they’re already at the hospital.

“I can pick you up tomorrow afternoon,” Tony says, slowing down to find a parking spot. “Unless you have some other ghost business to attend to.”

“Nothing I can’t postpone,” he jokes and is rewarded with a snort. “Thank you for today, Mr. Stark. I hope you have a nice evening.”

“Oh, I will.” With a smirk, he pats the place where the hard drive is hidden, and, feeling his cheeks heat up for the umpteenth time that day, Peter jumps through the car door.

* * *

The next day, Peter climbs into Tony’s car as he stops in front of a red light by the hospital. A part of him wonders if that’s only a coincidence or if Tony can also hack into traffic lights. “Hi, Mr. Stark!”

“FRIDAY, I’ll be working on Project Ghost Boy now,” Tony orders, and then smiles at Peter. “Hey there, kiddo. Did you sleep well?”

“You know I don’t sleep.”

“Well, I didn’t sleep either last night,” he says, sounding way too smug, and Peter just knows what’s coming next. “I was too busy reading your projects. And taking a look at your presentations. I have to say, you make a compelling argument for Finding Nemo. Might have to watch it some day.”

“You’ve never seen Finding Nemo?”

“Despite what my darling Pepper and the press like to say, I do actually work. Sometimes, it’s even work that’s related to the company.”

Peter can’t help but snicker at that. After several hours of panicking and spiraling (and really regretting that he can’t freak out with Ned about it) about all the events from the day before – especially Tony having such an interest in his work – Peter eventually accepted it. It’s not like he could’ve changed it anyway, seeing that it’s physically impossible for him to slap anything out of Tony’s hands.

Now, he’s itching to ask what he thinks about one project in particular that he’d worked on outside of school, a chemical solution trying to imitate a spider web and that could be used in the medical field as a first aid tool. Peter has the formula all figured out – well, theoretically, at least. Hed been wanting to try it out during his Chemistry class, but seeing as he’s neither in school or his body right now, it has to wait.

However, before he can scrape together enough courage to ask, Tony is talking again. “Are you ready for today?”

All the giddiness in Peter gets pushed to the side at once. While he had come to terms with Tony looking through his stuff, Peter actively tried to avoid thinking about visiting the place where he’d been shot. It’s scary. Peter isn’t good with scary stuff. He can’t even watch a mildly scary movie without someone there to make jokes to ease the tension.

He doesn’t have a choice, though.

Man, is this what being an adult is like? Doing stuff you really don’t want to do? Peter imagined it would be more fun.

“Yeah, totally,” he nods, and his voice isn’t even that shaky. Tony doesn’t call him out on the obvious lie.

They’ve already driven for quite some time when another thing crosses Peter’s mind. “How are we gonna do this? I don’t remember where it happened. Are we just gonna walk around and hope to find something?”

“Not exactly,” he answers. “I know exactly where it happened.” Before Peter can ask, Tony throws him a look. “Pentagon. When I was fifteen. A police report is no challenge for me.”

They stop in front of a little bodega that is quite familiar to Peter. Mr. Delmar makes the best sandwiches in all of Queens, he has the best brand of sour gummy worms, and he has a cat Peter always scratches behind his ears whenever he’s there. It’s a place that’s filled with good memories.

But then Tony walks directly towards the door and Peter feels a shiver run down his spine. “It happened in there?” Peter asks breathlessly. To be honest, he didn’t really think a lot about the whens or wheres or hows of being shot, but at _Delmar’s_?

“Yeah,” Tony answers, stopping and pretending to check his phone. “Can you remember anything?”

“No, but I went here, like, all the time.” He stares into the shop, watching Mr. Delmar joke with his employees. Murph lies on the counter, just like always, his tail lazily moving from left to right. “They make the best sandwiches in, like, at least all of Queens. I always order the same one, a number five with extra pickles and ask them to squish it down really flat because then there won’t be as much bread and-”

Realizing he’s started rambling again, Peter shuts his mouth soundly.

However, unlike the other times, Tony doesn’t brush it off. “You can keep talking, y’know?” he says, his voice a bit softer. “You don’t have to stop. Who knows? Maybe, if you kept talking, I might’ve found out that you’re one really smart cookie a lot earlier.”

Peter, always uncomfortable with getting compliments, starts to scoff and stutter: “I-I’m not that smart-”

“Kid,” Tony says, leaning a bit closer (probably looking kind of crazy to everyone walking by) and looking him straight in the eyes, “I’ve spent quite a few hours reading your stuff. You _are_ really smart. And I’m taking no criticism on that. Got it?” Peter is faintly aware of nodding. “Good. Now, let’s go in there.”

He gives Peter no time to protest and opens the door, walking straight in with his head… well, not held high, because he doesn’t want anyone to recognize him, but with his head slightly bowed, baseball cap pulled over his face and dark shades on his nose.

Peter follows. He half-expects another painful stab and then a fraction of a more-or-less helpful memory, but nothing happens. For a second, he thinks that Murph sees him, but then the cat turns his head, looking quite bored.

“Anything?” Tony asks under his breath, pretending to take a look at the lemonade cans.

“No, nothing,” he mutters, still looking around the place. “You read the police report. What happened here?”

Before Tony can get a word out, someone suddenly speaks up behind them. “Good afternoon!” Both Tony and Peter whirl around, looking at Mr. Delmar’s smiling face. “What can I get for you?”

For the fraction of a second, Peter thinks Tony might start stammering like _he_ always does, unable to come up with a believable lie on the spot – but he forgot one important thing: he’s talking about Tony freaking Stark.

“Actually, yeah,” Tony says with ease, taking off his glasses and walking over to the counter, throwing a smile at Mr. Delmar that shows all of his white teeth. “Someone told me that you can get the best sandwiches in Queens here. I can’t say no to that.”

Mr. Delmar laughs politely, but he squints his eyes at him. “You look like that Stark guy.”

Peter goes rigid, but Tony only laughs heartily. “Yeah, I get that a lot. Works great with the chicks, by the way. But, no, I’m not him. I’m way taller than that tiny guy. It’s the beard, his is quite similar to mine.” By some miracle, Mr. Delmar actually believes the lie. Peter can only stare at the billionaire in disguise, who gives him a quick wink.

“So, what sandwich can I get for you?”

“I, uh…” Tony’s eyes fly over the menu on the wall. “I’ll take the number five with extra pickles. And if you could flatten it down, that would be fantastic.”

Maybe Peter should’ve told Tony that no one besides him wanted their order like that. Mr. Delmar told him again and again that he’s the only one who ordered it. They always joked about it, Peter defending his special combo while Mr. Delmar said his taste buds didn’t work like they should. And even though it’s been about a month since Peter had been here, he knows Mr. Delmar hasn’t forgotten his order.

He knows it because he sees the way the man freezes, eyes snapping to Tony’s face and flying over it, as if he’s searching for something.

“You should’ve ordered something else,” Peter mumbles, feeling the tension rise between the three of them. “That was _my_ order. And he knows that.”

Tony gives no indication that he heard Peter. All he does is raise a questioning eyebrow. “Is there a problem? Are you out of pickles or something?”

“No,” Mr. Delmar answers slowly, starting to make the sandwich. “No problem at all.” There’s a pause. “That’s quite a particular order.”

“Some teenager I met on the subway a few weeks ago couldn’t stop rambling about it,” Tony explains, waving his hand dismissively. “When I saw your shop, I knew I had to take the opportunity.”

And again, another small miracle happens – or maybe Tony is just that much better at lying than Peter is – because Mr. Delmar accepts this lie as well. “Peter,” he says, eyes on the sandwich. “The kid’s name is Peter. He used to come here all the time, ordering that sandwich, getting some candy, butchering the beautiful Spanish language right in front of me.”

Once again, Peter’s heart swells with so many emotions. Oh, how he wishes he could just banter with Mr. Delmar like always – practice his very poor Spanish skills on him while he has to hear one joke after the other about his food choices. Then and there, Peter decides that the first thing he wants to eat after waking up is a sandwich from _Delmar’s_. 

“Used to?” Tony asks, seemingly nonchalant. “He doesn’t come around anymore?”

“No, not recently.” Mr. Delmar takes his time putting the pickles on the bread. “He’s been shot.”

“Shot?”

“Yeah. In here, actually. Over there.” He points towards the middle aisle and Peter whips his head around, staring at the spot.

“What happened?”

“There was a mugging. And the kid with his stupid heart of gold wanted to help.”

Pain flashes through Peter’s head.

_Taking shelter from the rain, Peter hurries into the familiar store, shaking some of the wetness off of him as he enters._

_“Isn’t it a little late for you?” Mr. Delmar jokes as he sees him, but Peter pays the comment no mind._

_The anger is still burning hot inside him, the fuel that keeps him moving, and even Murph coming up to him and rubbing his head against his wet pants can’t tame it. Peter doesn’t answer, walking through the aisle without even knowing what he wants. His head spings, his chest hurts and there’s a scream sitting in his throat, just waiting to burst out._

_“Do your aunt and uncle know you’re here?” he asks, apparently not picking up on Peter’s mood._

_“Why do you care?” Peter hisses, throwing him a dark glare._

_Mr. Delmar blinks once, confused by the kid’s unusual behavior. “I was just asking.”_

_“It’s none of your business,” he says, walking into a different aisle, hopefully sending a clear message that he doesn’t want to talk. Eying the products on the shelves, the question of_ what next? _weasels itself into Peter’s head. At some point, he has to go back home, he knows that. Maybe he could ask Ned if he could crash at his place. Or maybe he could manage to sneak in through the window._

_However, Peter knows that eventually, he has to go back – and then he’ll have to deal with the mess he’s created._

_Someone enters the store._

_“Good evening, how can I help you?” Mr. Delmar asks, friendly._

_There’s a gasp._

_“The money.”_

_“Okay, calm down-”_

_“I said the fucking money!”_

_Every little bit of anger and frustration that had been running through Peter’s body vanishes as he turns around and realizes what is happening. The mugger stands in front of Mr. Delmar, arm raised with a gun in his hand, shaking slightly, and a bag thrown on the counter. Mr. Delmar doesn’t move a single muscle, frozen in his spot, fear written all over the face._

_The mugger hasn’t seen him yet since Peter had deliberately disappeared to the back of the store and is out of everyone’s sight. Peter’s heart has simultaneously stopped and is beating like crazy in his chest. He has to do something. Anything! He can’t call the police without the mugger noticing him. Would they even get here in time? Probably not. Or maybe Mr. Delmar already called for help – that’s a real thing, right? Those panic buttons underneath the desks. Maybe Peter just needs to stay quiet and wait for it to be over._

_But what if something happens?_

_What if something bad happens because of him? What if it happens because he didn’t stop it?_

_Then it’s his fault._

_He has to do something!_

_Slowly crouching down, ducking out of sight, Peter looks around, trying to come up with a plan. His eyes fall on the big glass bottle in front of him, and he knows what he has to do._

_Peter isn’t a violent person – he’s not even a confrontational person (if you overlook the interactions with May and Ben these past few weeks). All his life, Peter let the kindergarten and school bullies tease him and push him around, too afraid of what might happen if he spoke up. Even now, there’s this tiny voice in his head telling him to find another way, something where no one gets hurt, but that voice is quickly drowned out by the part in control._

_The part that makes Peter reach for the bottle, careful to not make any sound at all, and get up again, walking up behind the mugger. The bottle is a lot heavier than it looked on the shelf. His hands are getting sweaty and his knees are shaking, but Peter strengthens his grip and takes one step after the other. All he needs is to hit him on the head, right? That’s what they do in movies and then the bottle will shatter and the mugger will be unconscious. Easy peasy. Like swinging a baseball bat._

_Peter pushes away the thought that he’s always been bad at baseball._

_Just when he starts to believe that his crazy plan might actually work, Mr. Delmar’s eyes jump to him, the fearful expression turning into a more extreme one. He mouths the word_ no _, almost invisible if you weren’t paying attention._

_The mugger is paying attention._

_He whirls around and suddenly Peter is looking down the barrel of a gun. Both of them freeze, staring into each other’s equally shocked and terrified faces._

_Peter has no idea what to do._

_The mugger does._

_The next thing Peter realizes is that he’s lying on the ground and that there’s pain._

_So much pain that it’s almost enough to drown out all the fear and regret inside his chest._

“How’s the kid?” Tony asks softly. There’s something in his voice that makes Peter look up, and he’s surprised to meet his eyes. Peter realizes that the question isn’t directed at the shop owner. However, that doesn’t mean he has an answer for it.

How is he?

“He’s in a coma,” Mr. Delmar answers, who has his eyes on the nearly finished sandwich, not noticing that Tony isn’t really talking to him. “It’s been kinda push and pull for a few days, but he’s been stable for about a month now. His family stops by from time to time.”

Tony is still looking at him with a burning gaze, so Peter shrugs. “I’m fine.” Even to his ears, it doesn’t sound convincing.

The billionaire doesn’t look satisfied with that answer, but since he can’t exactly start an argument with Peter right now, he takes it. “What about the mugger?” he continues, pulling out his wallet, grabbing a few bills and putting them on the counter. Absently, Peter notices that it’s enough to buy ten sandwiches.

“They caught the guy less than two blocks from here. He already confessed to everything, but the case is on hold until they know if it’s-“ He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to. They wait to see if it was murder or attempted murder.

Suddenly, everything is too much. The lights are too bright, the walls are too close, the noise from the radio us too loud, the air is too cold – the only thing that isn’t too much of something is Peter, because he’s not enough.

“I wanna go,” he says, barely able to get the words out. “Now.”

Tony gives him the tiniest nod, grabbing the wrapped-up sandwich. “Well, I hope the kid feels better soon. Can’t wait to hear him ramble on the subway again. Thanks for this!”

“Of course,” Mr. Delmar answers, pulling the money closer as Tony and Peter approach the door. “Wait, you forgot your-”

“Keep the change!” he yells back with a smile and the door falls shut behind them before they even get the chance to hear his answer. Not a second later, Tony drops the happy façade. “Peter? You okay?”

He wants to say no but he doesn’t get a single word over his lips.

People are walking through him.

He almost bled out on the floor of Mr. Delmar’s store and the last thing he said to May and Ben was that they didn’t care about him.

And now people are walking _through_ him.

“C’mon, let’s get into the car,” Tony mumbles. He tries to put his hand against Peter’s back, pushing him towards their destination, but just like everything else, his hand falls right through Peter, not the tiniest bit of resistance.

Oh god, Peter is about to start crying every second now. He knows it. And he really doesn’t want to cry in front of Tony.

Tony keeps quiet once they’re in the car, which isn’t what Peter expected. He expected questions that didn’t stop until Peter told him every little detail of that traumatic memory of being shot.

He was shot! In his favorite shop! How can he ever go back in there?

(Will he ever be able to go back in there?)

“I know you’re scared,” Tony eventually says, voice low and steady, “and that’s fine.”

“I’m not scared,” Peter lies. He doesn’t even know why he bothers with lying at all – it’s more than obvious that he’s not speaking the truth.

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter sees Tony looking at him, concern written all over his face. Then, the man sniffs once and moves his eyes back to the street. “My friend Rhodey made me go back to Afghanistan about a year after it happened.”

The words surprise Peter so much that he forgets his own misery for a moment and looks at Tony. He doesn’t need to ask what _it_ was. Peter had been so upset when he heard the news about Tony Stark being kidnapped, May and Ben barely knew what to do to calm him down. “Why?” he asks when Tony doesn’t continue.

“Because I was an idiot who didn’t really deal with what happened. And I was scared. So, he told me that when you fall down from a horse, you have to get back up there to confront your fear or you’ll never come back, and he dragged me onto a plane and brought me to the exact spot where we were ambushed.” Tony takes a deep breath. “Somehow, it was scarier than when I was actually kidnapped. The entire time, I was on edge, just waiting for something to happen. For another bomb to go off. For more gun fire, for more screams, for-”

He stops himself, and even though Peter itches with the need to ask for more, he holds his tongue. He shouldn’t ask for more. Firstly, because he’s in no position to ask someone else about their trauma, and secondly, he really shouldn’t ask while Tony is driving. Maybe Peter can’t get hurt, but he would never forgive himself if Tony did.

Tony clears his throat. “Nothing happened, of course. Rhodey had them check that spot probably a thousand times before we arrived. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to. The only thing that happened was me having a breakdown in the middle of the desert.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say. He’s read so much about Tony’s escape from Afghanistan, about how everyone thought he was dead for three months, but he somehow fought his way out of there and they found him in the middle of the desert with nothing but tons and tons of sand around him, looking like the sand dunes had simply spit him out. Of course, there were a lot of things that the military had classified, that weren’t known to the public, but Peter never knew that Tony went back. News like that would’ve made the front page, he’s sure of it.

“Everything you’re feeling right now,” Tony continues, steering the conversation back to the original topic, “the fear, the helplessness, the need to run away and to hide, the worry that it might happen again – all of that is valid. It’s okay. To be honest, I would be more concerned if you didn’t feel any of that.” He takes his eyes from the road again to fix his gaze on Peter. “It’s fine, Peter. You’re allowed to be scared.”

Before Peter even knows what’s happening, he’s crying. Not the subtle kind of crying that you can cover up by turning your head away and pretending that something is stuck in your eye – no, the kind of crying that has you gasping for air and that shakes your entire body and that gives you a headache and that seems endless. Peter tries to get a hold of himself, he really does, but it’s completely useless.

He barely notices Tony trying to touch him again, to put his hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort, but just like all the other times, his hand falls right through him, hitting the seat Peter is sitting on. It’s another stab in his chest, but since Tony doesn’t tell him to stop, Peter simply lets his emotions go.

He has no idea for how long he cries. It could be hours or minutes. Tony had just kept driving, but he must’ve driven in circles because they’re still in Queens. Now that he let all his emotions out, all the sadness and fear, Peter feels weirdly empty and hollow. In a miserable attempt to rescue some of his dignity, Peter wipes his tear-streaked cheeks, clears his throat and does his best to keep his head high. “S-Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony says with a smile, but Peter can see the slight uncomfortableness in his eyes. “Tears are a valid reaction. That’s what my therapist says, at least.”

“You’ve got a therapist?” Peter blurts out before he can realize how personal or invasive that question really is.

“Been kidnapped, remember? That’s something you need to work through. Even though it took me a couple of years to realize that, but… yeah. I have a therapist, and that’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in the last few years. Not that I’ll ever say that in front of Pepper, because she always gets so smug when she’s right.”

“She must be smug a lot.”

“You have no idea,” Tony snorts in a strangely affectionate way.

For a second, Peter smiles, grateful for Tony’s joke that fills the emptiness inside his aching chest, but then he recognizes where their route is leading them: back to the hospital. Just like the day before, Peter doesn’t want to go back, now less so than before. He doesn’t want to be alone. If Tony wasn’t be the only one to see and hear him, Peter would find someone else to comfort him, knowing that he shouldn’t ask for more than Tony is willing to offer – but he really doesn’t want to be alone.

Peter stays quiet for the rest of the drive, even though Tony tries to pick up the conversation once or twice, but the thought of being alone again laces up his throat. When Tony eventually parks in front of the hospital, he finally finds the strength to get at least a few words out. “Thanks for going there with me. And for, like, letting me have a breakdown in your car.”

“Yeah, of course,” Tony answers.

“Guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah.” Peter is about to lean out of the car when Tony speaks up again. “Wait, hold on a second.” A bit dumbfounded, he looks back at Tony who looks at him with an expression he can’t place. “Do you want to come to the Tower?”

Peter blinks. Did he hear that right? “What?”

“I know you don’t like being away from your body for too long,” he starts to explain, “but… I don’t think you really want to be alone right now.” Peter can only stare and Tony takes that as an invite to continue. “Your time in the lab got cut short yesterday, and I could show you around. I have a conference call later and after that Pepper will come home, but until then I could keep you company. If you want to.”

“Yes.” The word is out of Peter’s mouth before he can stop it. But honestly? He’s not even embarrassed about it. He doesn’t want to be alone right now. And seeing Tony’s lab again, getting a private tour, might be the distraction he needs. “Yes, I would like that.”

“Alright then,” Tony says, starting the car again and giving him a small but genuine smile. “Let’s go to the tower.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I'm aware that the test Tony made is most likely 100% not possible, but I needed something that would give Tony proof he's not going crazy and that was the only thing that made sense in my mind. I'm not a scientist, for very obvious reason. 
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, please let me know through a comment or something :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! :)
> 
> As always, thank you so much for all your amazing comments! They bring me so much joy! :)
> 
> And now, please enjoy the fluff.   
> ...  
> ...  
> ...  
> ...  
> While it lasts.

On their way to the Stark Tower, Peter tries his best to return to his usual cheery, happy self again, but it’s not really working. The somewhat familiar hollow feeling you have after a complete breakdown still sits in his chest, the images he saw in the store hovering behind his eyelids every time he blinks.

Tony tries to distract him, mostly by talking. He talks about everything and anything – complaining about other drivers on the road, giving small music lessons when one of his favorite songs plays on the radio, telling stories from his time at MIT, whatever crosses his mind. Peter doesn’t mind. For one, it’s quite interesting and amusing, hearing how he almost blew up a lab, and on the other side it’s calming. Tony’s voice is steady and strong, giving Peter something to latch onto to forget his worries for some time.

They park in the same spot as the day before, riding up the private elevator to Tony’s lab. Even though it’s not Peter’s first time in the lab, he’s just as excited about it.

“I’ve got a couple of minutes before I need to go,” Tony explains, glancing at his watch. “So how about I give you a little tour around the lab? We didn’t really have that much time in here yesterday. Plus, I didn’t know you would actually understand what I’m talking about. And after that I could queue up a few movies for you to watch.”

“Sounds great,” Peter agrees.

Getting a tour around the lab with Tony explaining everything without dumbing it down is probably the greatest distraction Peter’s ever come across. Before he knows it, he’s forgotten everything about muggers and bleeding out on the floor of a deli shop, too busy asking about Tony’s robots or inventions, finally able to get answers to the questions that have been nesting inside his head for years. Tony is more than happy to answer all of them in length, exclaiming that it’s been a long while since someone asked smart questions about his work, and if it wasn’t for FRIDAY reminding Tony of the time, they probably would’ve kept talking for hours.

Watching a movie is not as great as a distraction as talking to Tony, but Peter takes it anyway, preferring it to watching a movie at the hospital. Sure, it would be a lot more fun if Ned was here to discuss the fan theories they read on the internet or if May was around to talk about other movies the actors played in or if Ben could make the most outlandish movie snacks – but Peter refuses to think about that for too long, knowing that it won’t help him if he keeps thinking about stuff he can’t have right now. Instead, he takes the opportunity of no one seeing how he embarrasses himself reenacting the entire movie.

However, the only problem with no one seeing him is that no one can warn him when the only person who can see him comes back into the room.

“Who are you trying to stab?”

Peter almost falls off the small table he’s standing on, dropping his arm back to his side as the final battle of undead and living pirates continues on the screen. Unlike Peter, who’s pretty much mortally embarrassed right now, Tony looks quite amused, trying to hide the smile on his face.

“No one,” Peter says quickly, stepping down from the table. “Absolutely no one.”

“Were you acting out the movie?”

Peter snorts. “No! No, of course not!” Tony raises an unimpressed eyebrow and throws a pointed look at the screen. Peter clears his throat, deciding that the best plan of action is to change to subject. “How, uh, was your conference call?”

“Well, I was definitely not having as much fun as you,” Tony teases, waving a hand through the air dismissively. “It was boring and long-winded, just like most of the time. We could’ve finished it in about half an hour if everyone would’ve just listened to each other and stopped insisting on their opinion being right.”

Peter sorta wants to make a joke about Tony including himself in that statement or not, but he’s still too embarrassed about the man catching him pretending to be a pirate. Good job not behaving like a kid, Parker. You’re doing excellent work for your reputation right now.

But Tony doesn’t mention it. Instead, he sobers up, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Listen, we kinda need to talk about what happens next.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees. He’d thought about that, too. After reassuring themselves that they aren’t losing their minds, visiting the apartment, and going to _Delmar’s_ , Peter isn’t sure what they can do next.

“I’ve contacted some people who could help out, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. Hopefully, they might have some helpful tips or ideas. But until then…” Tony shrugs in a way that he probably wants to seem nonchalant, but Peter can see the tension in his shoulders. “Until then we just have to wait.”

“Okay.” Is Peter a tiny bit disappointed that Tony didn’t give him a detailed twelve step plan on how to get him back into his body? Yes. But they’re both out of their depth here. Waiting and hoping that someone else might have a clever idea is really the only thing to do.

It seems that Tony interprets his silence differently. For a second, his mask drops and there’s something like… pity. Or maybe sympathy. “Listen, kid, I promised you that I’ll fix this and that’s what I’ll be doing.”

“I know that.” Peter shrugs. “This entire… thing is weird. And I know that it takes time to figure out weird stuff. It’s just… getting news that isn’t exactly what you hoped for sucks.”

“You’re taking this a lot better than I anticipated.”

“Before you showed up at the hospital, I could do nothing but sit around and wait all day long. Now, I have someone who sees me and I figured out at least some of the stuff that happened to me. That’s an improvement.”

Tony smiles for a second but just like his good mood from earlier, it’s short-lived. “Speaking of the hospital. Pepper is coming home soon, so if you want to go back, we have to leave now.”

As soon as those words leave Tony’s mouth, Peter feels the emptiness draining back. Sure, he had tried to push the thought that he has to go back aside by marveling over the lab and pretending to be a pirate – anything to keep his mind too busy to think about the big, giant, looming elephant in the room – but it has always been there. He _knows_ he needs to go back.

But he doesn’t want to. So, he holds onto one little word, tying all of his hope to it. “ _If_?”

Tony sniffs, eyes shifting to DUM-E and U in the corner. “I mean, seeing as you literally can’t touch anything, it’s not like you could make a mess in here or scare the robots. And FRIDAY has access to pretty much every single movie that was ever made. So… if you’re fine with being away from the hospital and your body, I don’t see any reason why you can’t stay here.”

“For real?” Peter can’t help but ask.

“Yeah. I kinda had to promise Pepper that I wouldn’t barricade myself into the lab anymore and that I’d have a sleep schedule that’s considered normal and Rhodey likes to barge in here whenever he’s bored of working, so I can’t exactly promise that I can hang out without you all the time, but-”

“I don’t mind,” Peter quickly says. His heart is drumming against his ribcage. After the last few weeks, Peter is kind of used to being by himself. And if he has to choose between being by himself in a hospital and being by himself in Tony Stark’s lab, it’s really no competition at all.

“What about being away from your body?”

That, on the other hand, is something Peter more nervous about. He’s still paranoid that something might happen without him knowing and then…

Yeah, what’s then? Will he fly back into his body? Will he just… disappear? Will he be stuck like this forever?

Peter doesn’t know what will happen, but he knows he doesn’t want to find out.

However…

“I think it’ll be fine for a day,” Peter says, trying to convince himself just as much as Tony. “One day can’t hurt, right?”

* * *

But it’s not just one day.

While Peter does return to the hospital the next day to check if everything is fine with his body, he starts spending more and more time at Tony’s lab (and eventually in the penthouse, too) and with Tony himself. Every day, he stays a little longer, the thought of going back solely for his body seeming more and more bizarre every single time. Eventually, Peter spends most of the nights alone in Tony’s lab and watches his favorite movies. From time to time, he does actually visit his body, but he rarely spends more than a few hours there.

So, one day turns into many days that turn into weeks and eventually into months.

* * *

Tony drops a folder in front of Peter. That’s a bit confusing – Peter is pretty sure that particular project has only existed in digital form until now. “Did you print all of that out?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to throw it at you,” he says with a shrug, flipping the folder open. “Plus, I may look like a billionaire businessman, but deep down I’m a mechanic. I prefer to have actual stuff in my hands when I’m working.”

“And… you want to work on that?”

Tony raises an unbelieving eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t wanna work on it?”

“No! Of course I want to but I-” Not knowing how to finish that sentence, Peter shrugs.

“But you what?”

Still not knowing what to say, Peter shrugs again. The project in front of him is the one about the chemical spiderwebs; the one he’s been working for weeks and that he’s poured so much time and energy into. While he really wants to see if his chemical formula is right, he’s kind of dreading to see it at the same time. What if it doesn’t work? What if he’d been wrong? What if all of his efforts were for nothing – and all of that in front of Tony Stark? The thought alone makes him nauseous.

Peter expected Tony to just go ahead and start the project, rambling his ideas off as he usually does, seeing Peter’s project as something interesting but without the emotional investment Peter has to it. However, Tony simply stays quiet for a moment before sitting down on the chair next to him. “What gave you the idea for this?”

“My aunt is a nurse,” Peter explains, “and she always makes sure that my uncle and I know the basics. Like how to treat a wound and all that stuff, but I’ve never been that good at it. One day, our Biology teacher showed us a video about spiders – I think he might’ve been hungover – and I saw their webs and then it just… clicked. I know it’s weird, like, my mind making such strange connections but-”

“It’s not weird,” Tony says, not unkindly. “I know exactly what you mean. I have it all the time. An idea pops up in my head and it makes complete sense. Most of the time, I don’t notice that it might be weird until the people around me give me strange looks when I talk about it.”

Something like relief washes over Peter as he hears that. It’s nice to know that his brain isn’t crazy enough to not make sense to someone like Tony Stark.

Tony flips open the folder, opening to the page with the chemical formula and tapping at it. “I’m assuming that it’s purely theoretical.”

“Yeah,” Peter nods. “I wanted to try it out at school, but then…” He motions to himself, forgoing the explanation of what kept him from giving it a try.

“Since when do schools – even schools for nerds like you – let their students make chemical experiments on their own?”

“They don’t. I, uh, wanted to do it underneath my desk. We have big drawers,” he adds sheepishly, the tips of his ears burning.

A big smile is spreading across Tony’s face. “That sounds like a super fun plan, but seeing as we have a state-of-the-art lab at our disposal, how about we give it a try in an environment that is a little more… science-friendly. After all, you made an excellent list of all the things that could go wrong.”

“I thought about it a lot,” Peter says, somehow feeling like he needs to defend his excessive research.

“And that’s _good_. Being thoroughly prepared before starting an experiment is the best way of starting an experiment. Believe me, I should know – I constantly ignore that advice and it always gives me so much trouble.” Peter chuckles, not quite knowing if Tony is joking or not. However, the man doesn’t seem concerned or insulted by it; he simply claps in his hands and jumps to his feet. “So, are we doing this?”

“Why do you want to do it, Mr. Stark?”

“Because it’s interesting. Because it’s brilliant. Because spider silk is one of the most difficult things to recreate and you, a high school student, figured it out.” While Peter is still busy trying to comprehend all of Tony’s compliments, the look on his face changes from amusement to something more sober, almost looking like concern. “If you’re worried about me stealing your ideas, I’m not that much of a scumbag. I prefer to employ the people with great ideas instead of stealing them, like some other people in this industry do.”

“Is that a reference to Justin Hammer?”

“Of course it is. I can’t believe how lazy he was, blatantly copied my ideas and in such a bad way on top of it! Now, are you in the mood to make something explode?”

“I really hope that’s a rhetorical question.”

* * *

Tony stares at his phone screen, his mind just as blank as it had been five minutes ago. Or two hours ago when Pepper reminded him of his task and he couldn’t delay the inevitable anymore. He sighs, typing something in his phone, pausing, deleting it and sighing again.

“What are you doing?” Peter asks from his spot on the other side of the lab, where Tony had set up a small movie corner for the kid.

“Trying to come up with a caption for my post,” Tony groans.

It must be a teenager thing, the man decides, as Peter immediately sits up straight, completely forgetting about the movie playing in the background. “For what? Instagram?”

“Yeah. My PR team says I have to make a post to promote our products once in a while. They want funny but appropriate jokes and original hashtags and all that stuff. I don’t know why I can’t just copy whatever is written on Stark Industries’ official Instagram page. It’s more or less the same picture anyway.”

“Because that’s boring.” And then, after three seconds of consideration, Peter adds: “To be honest, your Instagram page is sorta boring, too.”

“Excuse me?” Tony asks. Peter is getting bolder around him every day, which Tony loves, but that also means he has to suffer through his cheekiness.

Peter shrugs. “Well, it’s true. Like you said yourself, it’s mostly about stuff SI makes, not what you make. It’s basically just another SI page. There’s nothing about your personal life.”

“That’s called privacy.”

“I know but…” The kid scrunches up his face, trying to find the right words. “Do you know how many kids from my school would literally do anything to get a look inside your lab? All of them. Your work is so interesting, especially for the ones who want to work in the field.”

Tony considers that for a moment. Is he proud that teenagers consider him and his work cool? Yeah, a little bit. “A lot of my work is confidential until SI officially introduces something.”

“Then what about, like, all the times something goes wrong? It would be hilarious and you could show people that failing at something is normal and part of the process.”

“Is that really something people like to watch?”

“Do you know how many videos there are of people falling down? Way, way too many.” A smirk appears on Peter’s face, and Tony already knows that whatever follows will be a jab at him. “Unless your ego can’t take it of course.”

“My ego can take anything,” Tony quickly defends himself.

The idea isn’t terrible per se. For one, Tony has countless content of him failing at things, most of them so hilarious that Rhodey spilled his drink all over the table when he’d seen. And Peter is right, seeing someone like Tony Stark fail at something could be aspiring for young nerds. Tony remembers clearly how he always thought he would never be as good as his father because he only ever saw his finished and perfected creations, never the long time and the failed attempts it took him.

Besides, maybe Janet from the PR team would finally stop sending him daily emails about his personal social media presence and how he should post more. In fact, Janet should be glad he’s got a relatively private internet presence – she wouldn’t be able to handle all the bad press Pepper had to deal with on his behalf ten years ago.

There’s not really a good reason not to do it. So, what’s the harm in uploading one video and seeing how it goes?

“Alright, come over here,” Tony says, waving Peter to him. “I may be one of the smartest people alive, but that doesn’t mean I speak teenage internet slang. You need to translate for me.”

“Oh, how about: _Felt cute, might delete later_?”

* * *

Peter stares at the black and white board in front of him, taking in the entire scene. The lab is completely silent.

But Tony Stark doesn’t do silent.

“Y’know, I know this isn’t speed chess,” he jokes, flipping Peter’s knight he stole earlier between his fingers, “and that you’re supposed to think about your move, but you’re allowed to make a decision in the next hour.”

“I’m thinking,” Peter answers, not even looking up. He honestly doesn’t know why they started the game of chess, neither of them really regular players, but it’s fun and Peter can really use the break from watching movies all day long.

Tony begins humming a song he doesn’t recognize and tapping a rhythm against the table with the chess piece.

Peter continues to stare at the board, hoping that all of this would conceal the fact that he has absolutely no strategy at all.

Eventually, he lifts his finger and points to his bishop. “This one,” he points to a tile on the board, “over here.”

“Here?” Tony asks, humor already in his voice as he takes Peter’s bishop and puts it down on the wrong place.

“No, the one to the left.”

“Oh, my bad.” And just like Peter already kind of predicted, Tony moves the piece to another wrong place. “This one, right?”

“No!” Peter groans as Tony begins to laugh. “C’mon, you know what I mean. Right here!” He stabs the board, his finger phasing through the wood and looking like it’s stuck in it.

“Alright, alright. I’m just joking.”

“Or you’re trying to cheat, so you can win.”

“Please. I don’t need to cheat, I’ll check mate you in three moves tops.”

* * *

“I feel like I should make an account where I only talk about food.”

“I regret convincing you to spend more time on Instagram.”

“How about _stark_approved_?”

* * *

There’s an explosion on the screen, but Peter barely pays it any attention. No, correction: he pays it no attention at all. Instead, he’s watching Tony, who’s been staring at the same paper for six minutes now, completely unmoving. If it weren’t for his eyes moving and the unhappy wrinkle slowly carving its way deeper and deeper into his forehead, Peter would think he’s spaced out.

Curious about what’s holding his attention like this, he tiptoes over to Tony’s working space. “Anything you need help with?”

Tony actually flinches when he hears Peter’s voice and he feels slightly bad about it. The man blinks at him. “What?”

“You seem like you’re stuck with something.” He nods towards the papers in front of him, immediately recognizing mathematical equations. “Anything I can help with? I mean, only if it’s nothing, like, top secret or anything. I promise I won’t sell out any super-secret SI information!”

“If you can figure out how to get the information to someone who isn’t me in your current state of being, you deserve to sell them out,” Tony deadpans, and Peter can’t really tell how much of it is a joke and how much isn’t. However, he doesn’t get the chance to figure it out, because Tony sighs deeply, rubbing a hand over his tired face. “Someone made a mistake in the calculations. They don’t know where they went wrong, FRIDAY somehow can’t pick it up, and my brain decided to take a break just now.”

Peter hums and he dares to take another look at the couple of pages full of equations. It’s been a while since he’s had a task like this. He never guessed that he would miss school, but watching movies all day long and literally being unable to do anything else does get boring after a while.

“Do you… Do you want my help?” he asks again, because he isn’t quite sure if Tony’s explanation had been an invitation to help or not.

“Absolutely,” Tony says, sounding a lot more relieved and tired than Peter expected. “I feel like if I have to look at this for even a second longer, I’m either gonna scream or break something. Maybe both.”

Peter successfully suppresses his little happy dance as he sits down next to Tony, his eyes already flying over the pages Tony pushes closer to him.

* * *

“I can’t believe you have a piece of technology this old in your lab.”

“Platypus, I can’t believe you’re ignoring DUM-E like this. He’s almost as old as this.” Recognizing his name, the robot starts to chirp, opening and closing his claw. “Yeah, you heard that right, DUM-E. Rhodey doesn’t think of you as technology.”

“That’s because he’s your kid, not just some piece of tech,” Rhodey throws back, not even looking up from where Tony is setting up the old gaming console. “Is that actually the one we bought at MIT? The real one?”

“Of course it’s the real one. It even has the scratches from when we took it apart the first couple of times.”

Rhodey carefully lifts up the device, checking the bottom for said marks. Tony has to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from smiling when he notices his friend’s gleeful excitement. “I can’t believe you’ve kept it all these years.”

“You know me, I’m a sap.”

“That is true.” Peter giggles from his spot on the other side of the couch and Tony sends him a mock-dark glare, kind of regretting he can’t make a comment because of Rhodey. “What made you fish this one out of the depths of your closet?”

“Just a mood,” Tony answers, picking up the Mario game and slipping it into the console.

It wasn’t a mood, it was – like so many things these days – Peter. He had been watching TV and there was an ad for the upcoming Mario game. The kid made a comment about how he always plays Mario games with his best friend and how much fun it is, and that’s when Tony remembered one of the few relics he kept from his time at MIT. He can’t count the hours he and Rhodey spent playing silly games instead of studying.

Tony had to make a few adaptations to even out the different levels of technology, but it worked. The screen flickers to life, showing the nostalgic logo.

“This is insane,” Peter keeps saying, barely able to sit still next to Tony. “There are, like, five pixels. Mr. Stark, this is _ancient_!”

“Watch it,” he mumbles, sending Peter another glare.

“What?” Rhodey asks.

“Nothing. Here, take this one,” Tony says, throwing one of the controllers at his friend. “Ready to save a princess who keep getting kidnapped by a giant, evil turtle?”

* * *

The Kingsman candidates on the screen are trying to figure out which one of them doesn’t have a parachute when Tony comes strolling back into the lab. Immediately, Peter shifts his attention from the action movie to the man. Over the past weeks, he’s gotten the memo that Tony coming back to the lab when he can’t sleep (especially when Pepper is away for a business trip, like right now) isn’t unusual. It could be an idea he suddenly had or a test he needs to run.

This time, however, Peter doubts it’s anything science-related keeping Tony awake. His eyes are barely open, his hair stands up in every direction, most likely from turning over again and again in his bed, and he looks tired. He’s been looking tired for the past few days, and Peter had wondered if he’s been sleeping okay, but Tony had always given him a dismissive answer and some bad excuse – he drank too much coffee, there was a conference call in the middle of the night, Pepper decided to warm her cold feet against his calves and so on. Seeing that Tony obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, Peter simply accepted it and did his best to distract him from whatever is troubling him.

“Hey,” Peter says softly as Tony flops down on the couch next to him. “Can’t sleep?”

Tony ignores the question. “What are you watching? There are no animals in it.”

“Well, actually there are some puppies, but it’s a spy movie.”

“Sounds fun.” Despite his claim, Tony doesn’t sound excited at all, but Peter doesn’t question it.

It’s not even five minutes before Tony falls asleep next to him, arms crossed over his chest, looking tense even now. If Peter could, he would drop a blanket over him or something, anything to make him more comfortable in the hopes that it would lead to some semblance of peaceful rest – but he can’t, so he simply continues watching the movie.

Less than half an hour later, Tony makes a noise. It’s nothing intelligible, not even close to a word, more like a baby testing out their vocal cords for the first time, but it sounds distressed enough to worry Peter. There’s a deep wrinkle between Tony’s eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth are turned downward in a grimace. It’s pretty safe to say that he’ not having a dream filled with rainbows, unicorns, and cotton candy.

“Mr. Stark?” he asks as Tony gets more and more restless, jerking his head from one side to the other, more and more whimpers slipping out between his lips. “Mr. Stark, it’s just a bad dream.”

Tony isn’t listening. He gets more and more restless with each second that passes, flinching away and curling into himself. The whimpers slowly turn into barely understandable words of _no_ , _stop_ , and _don’t_.

It physically hurts Peter to see him like that, and that’s saying a lot since he’s pretty much the exact opposite of physical right now.

“It’s only a nightmare,” Peter repeats, turning his full attention to Tony and raising his voice, hoping it’ll be enough to wake him up. “It’s not real. Mr. Stark, you only need to wake up. I promise it’ll be fine once you wake up.”

Nothing is working. In his desperation and on instinct, Peter reaches out to shake his shoulder, remembering too late that his hand will simply slip through Tony’s body like always–

Except that doesn’t happen.

When Peter grabs his shoulder, he’s actually met with resistance; he actually grabs Tony’s shoulder. _Really_ grabs it.

It surprises him so much that he pulls his hand away like he burned himself. His heart thunders in his chest, but for the first time in forever he’s not thinking about machines going crazy in the hospital or something. No, that thought is far from his mind.

He could touch Tony. He could really touch him, feel the tense muscles underneath his warm skin. And it had been real, Peter is absolutely sure of it. His hand is still somewhat tingling from the sensation and if he were a little bit braver, he would reach out again.

Why could he touch him? What changed? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does that mean he’s closer to waking up? Or is he closer to… the opposite of that?

However, before Peter can find the answers for all the questions racing through his head, Tony’s eyes snap open, flying through the entire room and taking in every detail as he realizes that he’s not wherever his mind has been seconds ago, but in the safety of his lab.

“It’s okay,” Peter says, deciding to distract himself from his own dilemma by focusing on Tony, “it was just a nightmare.”

As he comes to the same conclusion, Tony sighs, melting back into the cushions of the couch, looking even more tired than a few minutes ago. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s fine. Do you… Do you wanna talk about it?”

Tony scoffs. “No, absolutely not.”

Peter nods and he becomes hyperaware of his hand – the hand that just touched Tony. He knows he should share that bit of very important information, seeing as it’s the first change that happened since it turned out that he isn’t invisible to everyone, but no words pass between his lips. Something (read: fear and anxiety) keep pushing the words down, screaming at him to stay quiet.

“It was about Afghanistan.” Peter’s head snaps up from where he was staring at his hand, but Tony hasn’t even moved a fraction of an inch. To be honest, Peter kind of begins to wonder if maybe he imagined the words, but then Tony continues. “It’s always about Afghanistan.”

“About the attack?” he asks, not really knowing how to approach the topic. Despite his earlier words, the man clearly wants to talk about it, and yes, okay, maybe Peter is also curious to hear the story.

“Not this time, though there are plenty of times when that particular memory turns up, when I see those soldiers-” He cuts himself off and Peter doesn’t urge him to finish the sentence. Tony swallows once. “They were supposed to kill me, but once they realized who I am, they wanted me to build them a weapon. And I did. One last bomb to blow that entire fucking cave up. And something that would protect us.”

“Us?”

Tony doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes get a bit shiny. “I wasn’t alone in there. There was a man, a brilliant man. One of the bravest men I’ve ever met. If I’m ever gonna have a son, I’m gonna name him after him. First, he kept me alive, and then he gave me the push I needed to keep going. We had a plan, a plan we worked on for three months, but our kidnappers surprised us. We needed a bit more time, just a few minutes. So, Yinsen made sure that I would get those few minutes.”

A heavy silence falls over the two of them, the sounds from the movie turning into a far-away background noise, like waves crashing against the shore. Tony keeps staring at the wall silently, most likely reliving the painful memories he just told him about.

Peter has no idea what to say. Of course, he was always aware that Tony’s time in Afghanistan must’ve been traumatic. He’d been kidnapped, held hostage for three months and fought his way out of it. He told Peter himself about having a therapist and his troubles returning to the country. Logically, he knoww how gruesome it must have been – but it’s something different to hear it.

To hear the broken voice of his idol, of the man who always had an easy smile and a joke on his lips, who looks at a problem and no matter how broken or difficult it is, he goes _don’t worry, I’ll fix it_. To hear the pain and regret when he talks about the man who sacrificed himself so Tony could live. To hear the guilt.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers, because it’s the only thing running through his head.

“Don’t be. You weren’t the one who had me kidnapped.”

_No, that was the person who you considered family._ “I’m still sorry. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

Tony moves his head the tiniest bit into Peter’s direction, tired eyes zeroing in on him with a look Peter can’t quite figure out. Eventually, he rasps: “Thanks.”

* * *

Tony snorts as he reads through the latest project proposal on his table. Every once in a while, someone from the management branch thinks they can double in working for the R&D team, suggesting new products that are either pretty much copies of rivaling products or utterly ridiculous.

Like this one. “Kid, look at this,” Tony says, knowing Peter will get a kick out of it. “Even I couldn’t come up with something like this. Man, they should really stick to making business calls.”

However, he doesn’t get an answer.

“Peter?” Tony looks up from his workbench to the movie corner where Peter is sitting, watching a nature documentary about penguins (because it seems like the kid is incapable of watching anything that doesn’t have at least one animal in it). At least he’s supposed to be watching it, but his eyes are glazed over as he’s deep in thought. 

By now, Tony is used to it. In the beginning, he thought Peter might be remembering something else or it’s something else that has to do with his astral projecting, but it turns out he’s simply lost in thought, his tiny, brilliant brain coming up with stuff that’s no doubt just as impressive and probably ridiculous as the rest.

“Peter,” he calls out again, but it’s as fruitless as the other time.

Getting to his feet, Tony walks over to the couch, already reaching out to snap his fingers in front of Peter’s face, but it never gets to that.

Because his fingers get caught by the hood of Peter’s hoodie.

That’s never happened before. Just like the rest of Peter, his clothes are just as ghostly, as inconsequential as an image floating in the air whenever Tony happens to wave his hand through him. But now he’d felt the resistance of something being there, he felt the soft, worn material underneath his fingers.

Tony stares at his own fingers as if they would give him the answers to all the questions flashing through his head if he just stared hard enough. Why could he touch him? What changed? Or was it just a one-time thing?

The scientist in him takes over. He needs answers to his questions and for that he needs more data. With slightly trembling fingers and holding his breath, he reaches out again, eyes fixed on the spot of the hoodie he brushed against, anticipation and anxiety building up in him.

Suddenly, when his fingertips are still a couple of inches away and hovering in the air, Peter shakes himself out of his thoughts and jumps a little when he notices Tony behind him. “Mr. Stark! What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” The word bursts out before he can stop it and he pulls his hand back so fast, it feels like he burned himself.

Tony knows he should tell him. This is big, the first change that’s happened since the two of them met. But if he tells him, then Peter will no doubt have so many questions – questions Tony has no answers to. He doesn’t even know how he should start figuring those questions out. And if it was a weird anomaly? If it’s nothing more than a weird glitch in Peter’s current state of existing? Then he’ll have to see the heartbroken look on Peter’s face.

No, Tony can’t tell him right now. Not until he knows more about it.

So, he clears his throat, holding the proposal out for Peter to read. “Take a look at this. I need someone to laugh with me about it.”

If Peter notices Tony’s discomfort, he doesn’t call him out on it, and as soon as he starts reading the words on the page, he’s forgotten all about it.

Tony’s fingertips still tingle.

* * *

“Peter, why didn’t you tell me about those little dances everyone does? I could totally do them. Maybe together with DUM-E and U, people seem to love those two idiots.”

“If I ever get the chance to travel back in time, I will stop myself from encouraging you to be more active on social media before I stop me getting shot. That’s my order of priority. Please stop.”

* * *

“I miss food,” Peter comments as he leans against the kitchen counter and watches Tony study the take-out menu in his hands.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “I thought you don’t need food.”

“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.” He sighs dramatically. “I’m pretty sure I already forgot how pizza tastes.” Tony snorts, not even bothering to make a comment about it. “I would even eat my aunt’s bad cooking.”

“I assume she’s not a great cook.”

“No, she’s a nightmare in the kitchen. And those are her words, not mine.” As Tony laughs about his words, Peter thinks about May and Ben. Even though he has managed to distract himself from his not ideal state of being in the last two months that he spent with Tony, his thoughts often stray to them. He misses them _so much_. “Once, she wanted to make pasta from scratch with the original recipe from her Italian grandmother and it was an absolute disaster. It took us two days to clean up the mess.”

Tony smiles but stops, setting down the menu in his hands. “You know what? I could make pasta from scratch.”

“Are you only saying that because you see it as a challenge to make an even bigger mess?”

“Buddy, does that sound like something I would do?”

“After spending pretty much every day with you for the past two months, I have to say: yes, it definitely does.”

“You punk,” Tony mutters, flinging a piece of paper at Peter which – of course – flies straight through him. Peter answers with a smug smile. “I am part Italian, you know? Of course you know, you wrote three essays about me.”

“I wrote them about _your work_.”

“Pretty sure I saw a PowerPoint presentation about me, too.”

“You can’t make pasta from scratch,” Peter says instead, because he can’t deny the fact that he made a presentation about Tony.

Tony, taking the bait, raises an eyebrow. “Is that a bet?”

“Maybe.” Another thing crosses Peter’s mind. “I don’t have any money to bet.”

“I never use money as a wager anyway. We, Mr. Parker, will play for honor and glory. FRIDAY, get me the best Italian pasta recipe you can find. And start my playlist, you should never cook without music.”

Unsurprisingly, cooking turns into a bit of a disaster. Despite Tony’s claims that this runs through his blood, it’s not that easy. The singing and dancing don’t help – at least it doesn’t help the cooking, but it does a great job of entertaining Peter. Tony decides to make some tomato-y sauce with it, and Peter has to admit that it smells delicious. Judging by Tony’s smug grin, he knows it, too.

They’re so busy singing and dancing and playing air guitar and having fun that they don’t hear FRIDAY’s warning.

“What’s going on here?”

Both geniuses whirl around and come face to face with Pepper Potts who is coming over from the elevator, her expression a mix of amusement and confusion.

“Nothing,” Tony says quickly, telling FRIDAY to turn down the music. “Nothing at all. I didn’t expect you until later tonight, honey.”

“My last appointment got cancelled, so I took the opportunity and decided to bug you a little sooner.”

“Oh, you cruel woman. How will I survive that?” he answers with a wide grin as he shares a soft kiss with Pepper. Peter, who always starts feeling very uncomfortable once someone else comes into the room simply because they can’t see him, takes that opportunity to check the sauce idly cooking by itself.

“Did you make all of that?” Pepper asks, still smiling, as her eyes fall on the stove.

“Yeah. Who else?”

“And how long did it take you? The entire day?”

“That’s slander.”

“Not if you consider that it took you three hours to make an omelet.”

“Three hours?” Peter echoes and is rewarded with a chastising look from Tony.

“Who is supposed to eat all of that?” Pepper asks, completely oblivious to the silent exchange. “Are you planning to feed the entire building?”

“You know how people say that you shouldn’t go grocery shopping if you’re hungry. Apparently, the same thing goes for cooking,” Tony lies easily enough as he motions towards the absurd amount of pasta.

The first batch hasn’t been good enough for Tony’s liking, so he made a second one, and the third one followed because Peter made a comment about how cool it would be to surprise May and Ben with homemade pasta, so Tony started again but slower, giving Peter time to memorize everything. And when they suddenly looked at the small mountain of pasta, they had to adjust the amount of sauce.

Pepper tastes the sauce and makes a sound that is half appreciative and half surprised. Tony scoffs in mock-offense. “Well, since we both have some time and the food is already here, how about we turn this into an impromptu date night?”

Peter can see that Tony wants to say yes. Even in the few weeks that Peter has been here and without Tony saying a single word about it, he has picked up on the fact that Tony is kind of bummed out that he can’t spend as much time as he wants with his girlfriend because of their busy schedules. There have been plenty of times when Tony joined Peter back in the lab for a movie night because Pepper couldn’t make it.

But instead of immediately taking the opportunity, Tony throws Peter a worried look. Their plan had been for Tony to eat his own weight in pasta while watching a quiz show so they could make fun of the contestants. Nothing that can’t be rescheduled. “If you don’t say yes,” Peter deadpans, “I will steal your role of being the most obnoxious person in the building. And you’re the only one who’ll suffer.”

It takes a lot from Tony to hold his tongue, Peter can see it in his eyes. He presses another kiss against Pepper’s lips. “Sounds perfect. Now, how about you change into something that reminds me less of the lawsuits and I at least pretend to clean up this mess.” Pepper’s laugh echoes off the walls as she walks down the hallway. As soon as they both hear a door shut, Tony turns to Peter, pointing a finger at him and squinting his eyes. “ _My_ role of being the most obnoxious person in the building?”

“You know it’s true,” Peter answers with a shrug and a smirk. However, before it can escalate into an argument that isn’t important right now, he continues. “It’s totally fine. I’m long overdue to check in with my body, anyway.”

Tony nods once, half lost in thought. “Well, I’m pretty sure I can come up with a somewhat believable little white lie why I need to go to drive you, but-”

“I can go by myself.” Tony looks like he wants to protest, but Peter doesn’t give him any chance. “Seriously, what’s supposed to happen? Someone ghost-napping me? To be honest, I’m probably safer walking through the city now than any other time _ever_. I’ll be fine.”

Peter can see the fight in Tony’s eyes, the urge to get what he wants against the other thing that he wants, unable to combine them both. He’s not quite sure what the winning argument is, but Peter sees the exact moment the fight is over. “Fine,” Tony mumbles, trying to seem stern and authoritarian. “But you _will_ be careful.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And you’ll meet me back here tomorrow at… let’s say 10, I’ve got some calls to make in the morning.”

“Okay, sure. I’ll be here.”

Tony squints his eyes at him, probably not liking how easy all of this seems to be. However, they’re kind of on the clock here, so he makes Peter promise again that he’ll be at the foot of the Tower at 10 AM tomorrow and waiting by the private elevator before sending him with said private elevator down, telling FRIDAY to make a test run with it.

If Peter is completely honest, he’s way too excited to walk around the city. He loves New York – he’s always loved it – and even though spending time with Tony Stark has been amazing, he’s missed the buzz and bustle of the city, something new to see wherever he looks. Despite not being able to be a real part of the city, Peter takes his time to get back to the hospital, stopping by his favorite spots, studying how the display windows changed in the last couple of weeks, taking a break to listen to some street musicians, and riding an extra loop on the subway.

When he eventually enters the hospital, it’s the eerily quietness of the nights he remembers. Nights were always his least favorite part of the hospital. During the day, there was plenty of stuff to distract Peter from the more unpleasant sides of his life as an astral projection, but at night there’s barely anything happening – and if something does happen, it’s never good.

Peter finds the way to his room easily, waving to Nurse Julie as he passes her – but then he sees it.

There’s coming some light out of his room, shining onto the hallway through the slit underneath the door.

That’s unusual. The lights are always off in his room, except for when anybody is in there to visit him. Peter glances back to Julie, but she doesn’t seem to find anything suspicious about the little bit of light. Maybe it’s just a doctor checking up on him. Slowly inching forward, he leans towards the door, straining his ears to test his theory.

He can hear soft voices, but he can’t actually catch what they are saying.

Without thinking twice about it, Peter steps through the door. The entire room is lit up in a strange light, causing him to shield his eyes from the sudden difference.

The voices stopped talking.

Peter lowers his hands, blinking as the light slowly abates.

His heart sinks through his stomach.

“Mom? Dad?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will there ever be a day when I won't write montage-like flashbacks to certain memories to indicate the passing of time? Maybe. But today is not that day. 
> 
> If you thought the story has been sad until now, you better strap in for the next chapter. 
> 
> And if you feel the urge to scream now, why don't you leave me a screaming comment? ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please leave some kudos, comments, or come talk to me over on [tumblr](https://jen27ny.tumblr.com/) :)


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